Blog

History 250 class visit to Special Collections & Archives

Tuesday, February 2, 2016 by Nick Richbell

Special Collections & Archives is committed to student success and we support faculties and departments in class or in library instruction using our collections. One example of this recently took place when we welcomed Professor Ian Milligan’s class (HIST 250) from the department of history to Special Collections & Archives. The class was divided into 2 groups; one group visited us while the second attended a session led by the library’s history librarian Jane Forgay, about research strategies, tools, and library services.

books

archives

history

HIST250

Fore-edge paintings

Wednesday, January 27, 2016 by Martha Lauzon

A fore-edge painting is one done on the edges of a book's pages, so that the painting is only visible when the pages of the book are fanned.

18th century literature

Sardinia

hydrography

WS101, meet Elizabeth Smith Shortt

Tuesday, January 19, 2016 by Martha Lauzon

Last term, Special Collections & Archives received 150 Women's Studies 101 students to help us transcribe the notebooks of Alice Riggs Hunt.

Red Riding Hood

Monday, January 4, 2016 by Martha Lauzon

I hope everyone had lovely holidays! Down in Special Collections & Archives, we are all rested up, and are welcoming in 2016 by featuring a lovely shape book of stories and nursery rhymes, published by Ernest Nister in the 1890s.

books

children's literature

Les oeuvres spirituelles de Monsieur de Bernieres Louvigni

Tuesday, December 22, 2015 by Martha Lauzon

Today's blog post features a rather interesting item that we've been including in displays for years.

Fire!

Monday, December 14, 2015 by Martha Lauzon

Golf's Steak House opened in 1976, at 598 Lancaster St. W. in Kitchener. The building was designed by W.H. Breithaupt in 1903, and was originally occupied by the Bridgeport Casino. Special Collections & Archives also holds the blueprints for the casino.

Journal of a party of pleasure to Paris in the month of August, 1802

Monday, December 7, 2015 by Martha Lauzon

Sir John Dean Paul (1775-1852) was an English Neo-Classical artist, specializing in bucolic scenes and horses. He became the first Baronet of Rodborough in 1821.

Gas masks for military and civilian use

Tuesday, December 1, 2015 by Martha Lauzon

In 1854, William Brown, Ashley Hibbard and George Bourn met in Montreal to start Brown, Hubbard, Bourn & Co., the first manufacturer of Caoutchouc (Indian rubber) footwear in Canada. Several mergers and acquisitions later, they became the Dominion Rubber Company in 1910, and in 1912 built the Dominion Tire factory in Berlin (now Kitchener) to meet the new demand for automobile tires.

women in the work force

New exhibit : 16 days of activism against gender violence

Tuesday, November 24, 2015 by Martha Lauzon

This year the Library is participating for the first time in 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, from November 25th (the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women) to December 10th (International Human Rights Day).

archives

women's studies

gender violence

Kitchener-Waterloo Survey 1944

Wednesday, November 18, 2015 by Martha Lauzon

In 1943, with the Second World War raging, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce began (rather optimistically) to plan for the coming peace, and they invited the Waterloo and Kitchener Boards of Trade to participate in an experimental fact-finding survey of Waterloo County (now Waterloo Region), to determine "economic facts about the past and present and the expectations of the future in their district".¹