This week we’ve added a small group of material to the archives of Weston Garnett, a screenwriter, novelist and poet, born in Toronto in 1890 who eventually settled in East Sooke, Vancouver Island.  A little research on Weston proves interesting: he was the screenwriter for the 1932 film “White Zombie” which among Zombie aficionados is considered to be the first-ever Zombie movie.  Unfortunately, the manuscript for “White Zombie” is not part of his archives here at UBC.  We do however have manuscripts of several novels, poetry, and one screenplay co-written with Zelda Sears.

Garnett Weston at Graymar, East Sooke

Two archival collections at Rare Books and Special Collections which were updated over the summer:

Doris Shadbolt fonds: Doris Shadbolt (1918-2003) was a well-known figure in the Canadian art world for her curatorial work at the Vancouver Art Gallery, and her seminal works on Emily Carr and Bill Reid.  A recent addition to this collection continues to show her influence as a researcher, lecturer and curator, but also offers a glimpse of Shadbolt as an artist in her own right.  The files include sketchbooks, designs, and documents related to jewelery design. Click here to read the finding aid.

Literary Storefront fonds: The Literary Storefront was established in 1978 as a grass-roots literary centre for west coast and Canadian authors and poets (click here for a brief history).  Before it dissolved in 1985, hundreds of readings,workshsops, lectures, and symposiums took place at the Literary Storefront.  The addition to the archives includes tapes of readings by Canadian authors and poets such as David Watmough, Margaret Atwood, Jack Hodgins, W.P. Kinsella and Tom Wayman, and American authors/poets including Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes Jack Kerouac and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.   Photographs show readings, events, and everyday life at the Storefront. Click here to read the updated finding aid.

B.C. Writers' review image, from Literary Storefront fonds

Study for Plucking Chickens, 1952, Mac Hone.

Rare Books and Special Collections is well-known for our extensive collections on labour in British Columbia. We were excited therefore to see a new digital collection from the University of Saskatchewan on labour in that province.   The collection contains over 2,494 images or textual documents scanned from over 32 fonds and collections at 8 different archival institutions.  Users can search, or browse by theme or occupation. Visit the site by clicking here.

RBSC’s labour union records include the International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers, the Industrial Workers of the World Vancouver Branch, the Service, Office and Retail Workers Union of Canada and many others.  To find others, search the RBSC site for the keywords “labour union.”