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Irving K. Barber Learning Centre
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V6T 1Z1
BC Historical Books
Things to do on Winter Break: Part I
The holiday season is fast approaching! Are you looking for vacation ideas? In this two-part series, we compile images of winter activities and attractions from Open Collections. Enjoy! Winter sports Canada is a playground for winter sports lovers. Snowshoeing, sledding, and tobogganing as recreational activities can date back to 19th century. Check out these engravings […]
Explore Illustrations of Plants in Open Collections
In a previous blog post, we discussed John Gerard’s The herball, or, Generall historie of plants (1597), a book that features lists of plants with accompanying descriptions of their properties. For this blog, we will introduce more illustrations of plants in our Open Collections. Botanical and ethnological appendix to Menzies’ journal of Vancouver’s voyage, April […]
The Canadian Rockies
Did you know that mountains cover 75 per cent of British Columbia[i]? Like the beaches we introduced in April, mountains offer beautiful scenery in summer. Today, we will focus on the Canadian Rockies depicted and described in our digitized photographs, illustrations, and books in Open Collections. Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs […]
BC-related Dictionaries
The BC Historical Books collection contains the digitized bibliographies of British Columbia. In the collection, there are 35 dictionaries related to BC History. Here, we will introduce some of our favourite ones! City Directories Do you have the White or Yellow Pages at home? UBC Rare Books and Special Collections has a collection of city […]
Celebrate National Poetry Month
Since this April is National Poetry Month, we’ve gathered together selected poetry and related items from Open Collections for your enjoyment! Our recently added Historical Children’s Literature Collection includes several poetry chapbooks. This chapbook, The butterfly’s ball, and the grasshopper’s feast, includes beautiful engraved illustrations: Our BC Historical Books collection also contains several […]
Maps in Open Collections
The Digitization Centre has digitized several collections of maps, as well as several collections that contain maps among other materials. This post provides a summary of those collections, showcasing some of our favourite maps from Open Collections! Greater Vancouver Regional District Planning Department Land Use Maps This collection contains more than 1,800 maps of the […]
Library catalogues in Open Collections
Have you ever wondered about what library catalogues used to look like – or what books were in your local library’s collection many decades ago? We’ve come across a handful of historical library catalogues in Open Collections, which we’ve gathered here for your perusal. You can click on the title or cover of any of […]
Fauna boreali-americana
In the early 19th century, the Scottish naturalist and explorer John Richardson traveled with Sir William Franklin in search of the Northwest Passage. He recorded the scientific findings of these expeditions in two works: Flora boreali-americana (1833-1840) and Fauna boreali-americana (1829-1837). The latter is a four-volume text about the animals of North America and the […]
John Latham’s birds
John Latham (1740-1837) was an English doctor and naturalist, famous for his work in ornithology. He was particularly known for his study of Australian birds, brought to England and observed on James Cook’s colonial expeditions. Latham published A general synopsis of birds over the years 1781-1785, with supplements published in 1787 and 1801. A general […]
