A new archival collection is now available at Rare Books and Special Collections: the Stefan Arnason fonds contains the diaries of an Icelandic immigrant who, like a Canadian version of Grapes of Wrath, packed up his family of thirteen in 1937 in a 1.5 ton Dodge truck and moved them from Pine Valley, Manitoba to Vancouver.  The diary excerpt shown here describes their arrival in the Vancouver area- unable to find accommodations able to house such a large family, their first “home” in Vancouver was camping out in Central Park in Burnaby, which he initially described as a “forest near the Vancouver city limits.”  The diaries continue from there to chronicle the family’s every-day life in Vancouver, including employment issues, family occasions, and even the weather.  Stefan Arnason was an active diarist until his death in 1956.

The diaries and their transcriptions, as well as other notebooks and documents, have been made available for use here at RBSC through their generous donation by the descendants of Stefan Arnason.  Most of the material is in English; some earlier diary entries are in Icelandic, but translations are available in the transcriptions.

Diary excerpt by Stefan Arnason

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.”

Douglas Coupland, whose archives are held by Rare Books and Special Collections,  is among 12 individuals to receive an honorary degree from UBC this year: http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/2010/03/11/olympic-organizer-tv-rant-er-gen-x-author-astronaut-to-receive-ubc-honorary-degrees/

What better way to understand Douglas Coupland’s work than to explore his archives?  A finding aid for the Douglas Coupland fonds is available here.  The collections at Rare Books and Special Collections are available for use to both UBC affiliated users and the general public.

Last semester students from the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies class ARST 515 updated a number of archival finding aids to be compliant with the current Rules for Archival Description. They did a great job and hopefully found it to be a useful real life experience.  The updated finding aids are:

Archaeological Society of British Columbia fonds, by Joanna Hammerschmidt, Judy Hu, and Asiyih Modarai

Labour History Association fonds, by Sara Church, Carolyn Downs, and Myron Groover

Patricia Blondal fonds, by Adam Gold and Sarah Rathjen

Frank Charnley fonds, by Shalene Williams, Jen Busch, and Marisa Tutt

E.M. Delafield fonds, by Ellie Kim, Kelly E. Lau, and Patrick Ansah

John Emerson fonds, by Andrew Berger, Peter Houston, Jayson Kennedy, Tony Power

George Gee fonds, by Yolanda Bustos, Tristan Campbell, and Jessie London

Irene Howard fonds, by Sergey Kovynev, Lisa Snider, and Lindsay Szymanski

International Order of the Good Templars fonds, by Massimiliano Grandi, Myles Legacy, Jamie Sanford, Amanda Tomé

Thanks to all of the students for their hard work, and to adjunct professor Jennifer Douglas for coordinating.

Archives of note recently added at Rare Books and Special Collections:

Peter Faminow fonds: Peter Faminow was born in Alberta to Doukhobor parents.  He studied law, and became actively involved in the Doukhobor youth movement.  He helped organize the 1958 Conference on Peace through Non-violence, authored a column called “Dasha” in the Doukhobor publication Mir, and served as the secretary-treasurer of the Union of Doukhobors in Canada. After relocating to North Vancouver to practice law, Faminow served as a councillor and alderman for the District of North Vancouver between 1960 and 1974. The fonds contains documents related to both Faminow’s career as a lawyer and politician, and also related to his involvement in the Doukhobor community, including rare documents circulated in the Doukhobor community in the 1920’s-1950’s, documents related to the New Denver school issue, and correspondence with Koozma Tarasoff.  The finding aid for the fonds can be found here:  http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll/AZ/PDF/EFG/Faminow_Peter.pdf. The image above is shows the cover of a petition to the government regarding New Denver School (from file 3-17).

W. Randle Iredale fonds: A graduate of UBC, Randle Iredale was a well-known Vancouver-based architect.  Some of his notable projects include the development project at Portage Mountain, the Sedgewick Undergraduate Library at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver’s Park Site 19 Project, and the Systems Control Center at Simon Fraser University. Randle Iredale passed away in 2000. This fonds contains extensive material related to Iredale’s architectural career, including technical drawings, photographs and slides.  The finding aid for the fonds can be found here: http://www.library.ubc.ca/spcoll/AZ/PDF/I/Iredale_Randle.pdf.

The Chung Collection has been featured over the years by several B.C. newspapers, usually in the arts or culture section.  This morning it graces the front page of the Vancouver Sun’s business section, where Joanne Lee-Young uses the collection to highlight B.C.’s longstanding economic ties with Asia.  She writes, “B.C. may promote its Asia Pacific Gateway as a newfangled concept, but many of Chung’s keepsakes, especially the ones collected from Canadian Pacific Railways and Steamships, are reminders that people and trade to and from Asia have been flowing for much more than 100 years.”

Read the whole article here: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Chung+Collection+illuminates+Chinese+experience/2566307/story.html