News from UW Library

Following is quarterly news from Sion romaine, UW Canadian Studies Librarian. News focuses on UW collections and databases.

	Spring Quarter 2009 News from UW Library Collections Sion Romaine, UW Canadian Studies Librarian
	Winter Quarter 2009 News from UW Library Collections Sion Romaine, UW Canadian Studies Librarian
	Fall Quarter 2008 Arctic Library Donation Sion Romaine, UW Canadian Studies Librarian
	Summer Quarter 2008 UW Libraries receive Canadian Government Grant Sion Romaine, UW Canadian Studies Librarian

News from the UW Library Collections, Spring 2009

By Sion Romaine

Sion joins two Alaska-Yukon-Pacific fairgoers in exploring Canadian content from the Libraries’ Special Collections Division.

Sion Romaine has served as Canadian Studies Librarian since joining the UW staff in 2006. He has a strong background in Canadian Studies, graduating from the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies at the University of British Columbia with research interests in First Nations library services. Sion oversees the Libraries Subject Guide on Canada, provides a monthly notice of new Canadian Studies acquisitions, and serves as the Libraries representative on the Executive Board for the Pacific Northwest Canadian Studies Consortium.

This year, the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exhibition (AYP) celebrates its centennial. Organized to publicize the development of the Pacific Northwest, the AYP was located on the small but growing University of Washington-Seattle campus. Then, as now, Canada was one of the US’ most important trading partners, so it is no surprise that both the Government of Canada and the Grand Trunk Railway (which would eventually become Canadian National Railways) chose to participate with their own exhibit buildings.

Neither exhibit building exists today. However, hundreds of photographs and postcards of these buildings and other AYP exhibit buildings, as well as various paper memorabilia, can be found in the Libraries’ Special Collections Division. Approximately 1,200 photographs and prints of the AYP have been digitized and are available online through the Libraries’ website (http://www.lib.washington.edu).

Browsing these photographs, one is struck by how, even a century ago, the Government of Canada was able to use stereotypes successfully to promote the country. For example, the Canada Building’s exhibit on Canadian beavers – which included two tanks with live beavers – slyly noted that Canada beavers are “the earliest known wood cutters and dam builders in the world.” A magazine of the day described the Canada Building as epitomizing “the abounding prosperity of which even now Canada is mistress, and of the still rosier future to which she is destined.”

In celebration of the AYP’s centennial, Special Collections staff has created three exhibits focusing on the fair. Located in the Suzzallo Exhibit Room, the Allen balcony, and the Special Collections lobby, the exhibits will run through October 30. Be sure to visit our website or stop by in person and view the photos of the beaver exhibit!

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News from UW Library Collections, Winter 2009
By Sion Romaine

The Center serves as Secretariat for the Pacific Northwest Canadian Studies Consortium. At the Annual General Meeting in Portland, Sion Romaine (right), UW Canadian Studies Librarian and Gary Wilson, University of Northern British Columbia, look over meeting notes.

It’s not news that the world wide web has become the preferred information portal for students and faculty doing research. With the web now being the biggest service point for many organizations, libraries and other government agencies around the world have ramped up digitization projects. Two recently completed digitization projects that will be of interest to Canadian Studies scholars include Victoria’s British Colonist newspaper and select films from the National Film Board of Canada. A third resource, the Canadian Music Centre, streams archival recordings through their website.

The University of Victoria, in cooperation with the Victoria Times-Colonist and other British Columbia libraries, has fully digitized the British Colonist newspaper (predecessor to the Times-Colonist). Full text searching of every issue from December 1858 to June 1910 is now available free online at http://britishcolonist.ca/

Canada's National Film Board (NFB) has created an online screening room as part of a $1.3 CDN million project to digitize its collection of historic films. More than 700 films, chosen by a group of filmmakers and curators, are now online, including Oscar-winning and nominated films like Neighbours, I'll Find a Way, and The Cat Came Back, as well as documentaries on a wide range of topics. Films may be searched by keyword, director, language, year, genre or length. Thematic playlists are included. Available free online at http://www.nfb.ca/

As the primary place to find scores, parts and recordings of Canadian contemporary music composers, the Canadian Music Centre (CMC) is a unique information resource for composers, media, presenters, conductors, choreographers, performers, broadcasters, students and all those who simply listen to and enjoy music. The CMC has five centers across Canada, in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Sackville. For those of you not close to a physical location, the Centre offers a free-of-charge lending library of over 15,000 scores and/or works of Canadian contemporary music composers. In addition, their website, http://www.musiccentre.ca, offers live chat research assistance and free streaming access to nearly 9000 archival recordings. Tune in, sit back and enjoy!

(The Center’s Canadian Music Collection, initiated by former Affiliated Graduate Student, Devon Leger, has just been expanded by 2007-08 FLAS Fellow (French), Cody Case. See pg. 10 for an introduction to the latest collection of modern Canadian music.)

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Arctic Library Donation, Fall 2008

Since UW was founded in 1861, gifts have made significant contributions to the excellence of the University Libraries and have helped build its outstanding collections. In 2007-2008, the Libraries’ Gifts Program processed nearly 60,000 items from over 1,300 donors.

Many students and researchers may consider their books or collections to be of little to no value upon graduating or finishing their research and might either discard them or donate them to charity; in fact, these materials are often of great interest to the Libraries because their content is directly related to an academic program! (Materials that do not fit the Libraries collection scope are, whenever possible, distributed to other institutions; for example, as a partner in the Books for Libraries Program, the University Libraries last year distributed more than 4,000 excess gifts and withdrawn materials to libraries throughout Eritrea in Northeast Africa.)

This fall, UW graduate Tim Pasch donated his collection of Canadian and Arctic Studies materials, comprising books and media he used while pursuing a doctoral degree in Communication. Notable items in this donation include a bilingual (English/Inuktitut) Nunavik Terminology Database, monographs and reports published by local government and tribal agencies, short runs of serials published in the North, and annual reports from the Nunavik Inuit Elders’ Conferences.Much of this material is either not widely held by research libraries or is difficult to source from outside the Canadian Arctic. With climate change and sovereignty issues propelling the Arctic to the global stage, these materials will prove invaluable for scholars and researchers.

Thanks Tim - it’s donations like these that have helped the Libraries create and maintain a world-class collection!

I would also like to report that The Orbis Cascade Alliance, the consortium of Oregon/Washington academic libraries that participate in and are responsible for the Summit shared catalog, is changing software vendors. The new WorldCat catalog will give you access to over 107 million library records, made accessible through powerful and easy-to-use search capabilities. Now, more than ever, resources for Canadian Studies from the world’s libraries are findable and requestable directly from your desktop! You may experience minor changes in service levels when requesting materials from other institutions, as staff get used to using the new system. More information at: http://www.lib.washington.edu/services/summitchange.html

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UW Libraries receive Canadian Government Grant, July 2008

Sion Romaine, Canadian Studies Librarian, University of Washington, July 2008.

The Libraries has received a $2000 matching library grant from the International Council for Canadian Studies Library Support Program through a contribution of the Government of Canada and with the assistance of the Consulate General of Canada in Seattle, to support the purchase of the 2007 Federal Non-Depository documents on microfiche (Microlog).

Microlog includes research, scientific, technical and annual reports, policy papers and statistical materials issued by research institutes and government laboratories; policy, social, economic, and political reports; Statistics Canada monographs, and serials. These documents are noted in the library catalog, and are indexed and abstracted in the online Canadian Research Index, available through the University Libraries.

The Library Support Program is designed to assist university libraries to strengthen their Canadiana library holdings in order to support teaching and research in Canadian Studies. Funds are available only for the purchase of library materials considered to be Canadiana and which are deemed by the Embassy of Canada or High Commission to qualify as having a specific bearing on the study of Canada and/or Canadian culture.

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