For a printable, interactive version, please view the PDF.

The latest issue of UBC Library’s Friends newsletter is now available online (PDF). 

Highlights include recent acquisitions from Videomatica, transformations to physical library spaces, exhibits and a showcase of the Chung Collection. In addition, Dr. Irving K. Barber andBasil Stuart-Stubbs, both supporters of the Library, are remembered in memoriam.

Friends readers are encouraged to fill out a readership survey and enter in a draw to win a $50 Amazon.com gift certificate. The survey is open until December 21, 2012.

Dr. Lloyd and Mrs. Kay Chapman shared a desire to give to others. As alumni who deeply valued scholarship and learning, the Chapmans were benefactors of diverse innovative initiatives across campus, including renovations of UBC’s Main Library heritage core (re-named the Chapman Learning Commons in their honour), a bursary fund and an endowment to support student awards and summer projects for students engaged in Community Service Learning opportunities.  

The creation of the Chapman Learning Commons has positioned UBC as a leader in the delivery of innovative programs and services that support student learning and contribute to academic success. Some of these programs include learning technology and multimedia support at a central help desk; tutoring in math, physics, economics, psychology and chemistry; writing support; and peer academic coaching.

The Chapmans believed that people learn best when they are engaged in discussion, sharing ideas and insights. To realize their vision, the student-led Chapman Discussion Series brings together panels of experts to discuss important societal issues. Learning focused workshops and events are hosted in the Chapman Learning Commons throughout the year and the space has become a hub of activity in support of student academic success.

Other innovative programs run through the Chapman Learning Commons include the Learning Commons website that features interactive student toolkits and a campus-wide tutoring calendar; access to cutting edge multimedia hardware and software; and a bi-annual ‘Stress Less for Exam Success’ event that features activities and resources to help students better manage exam stress in order to reach their academic goals.

Although UBC has lost a friend and supporter with the passing of Kay Chapman, she and her late husband Lloyd have left an enduring legacy that will continue to support and nurture student academic success for generations to come.

Learn more about the Chapman Learning Commons.

After nearly 30 years in business, Vancouver’s beloved video rental store Videomatica donated its 28,000-piece film collection to UBC in January. The collection, which includes classics, musicals, cult hits, documentaries and independent and foreign films, will be housed at UBC Library.

“This is a phenomenal gift. I’m very excited about what it’s going to do for the curriculum and faculty research, ” says Jo Anne Newyear Ramirez, Associate University Librarian. “There isn’t a collection quite like it, in this region, or within Canada.”

Videomatica co-founders Graham Peat and Brian Bosworth felt it was important that the collection remain together, rather than parceled out to individual film enthusiasts. 

“After spending three decades building a unique film library and the better part of a year trying to preserve it, how wonderfully rewarding it is to know the interests of both the public and film students will be served with the collection finding a home at UBC and SFU,” says Peat. 

Read the full media release from Jan. 16, 2012, “UBC and SFU welcome $1.7M Videomatica film collection.”

For more information on the donation see UBC’s Report on Giving or explore the story on social media.

Dr. Barber was a visionary thinker with a strong commitment to strengthening BC, improving the quality of life for its residents, and providing an enriched university experience for students. His gift of $20 million was largely responsible for the development and construction of the Learning Centre and the realization of its mission: a facility dedicated to the intellectual, social, cultural and economic development of the people of British Columbia and beyond.

Ike and Jean Barber with students. Photo: Martin Dee

Dr. Barber’s generosity has been instrumental in establishing programs to promote research, including the creation of the I.K. Barber Enhanced Forestry Laboratory at the University of Northern British Columbia, the Irving K. Barber Diabetes Research Endowment Fund at UBC and the Ike Barber Human Islet Transplant Laboratory at Vancouver Hospital in partnership with UBC.

“We are ever grateful for the generosity of Ike and his wife Jean,” says Ingrid Parent, UBC’s University Librarian. “Their support was crucial to the success of the Learning Centre, which has connected with lifelong learners and students at UBC and beyond. And his support for, and belief in, the transformative role of libraries was inspiring. He will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live on at the Learning Centre, and in the other worthy projects that he backed. Thank you, Ike, for your vision, passion, humour and dedication.”

Simon Neame, Director of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, concurs, adding that Dr. Barber never forgot the people in communities across BC who made a difference in his own life. “Dr. Barber’s passion and commitment to student learning and the people of British Columbia never wavered. With their gift for the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Dr. Barber and his wife Jean created a place where all are inspired to learn – about themselves, and about the world around them. The Learning Centre’s programs and services reach out beyond campus to connect communities with learning opportunities, fulfilling Dr. Barber’s vision of a facility dedicated to lifelong learning for the citizens of BC and beyond.”

Dr. Barber was born on February 14, 1923 in Edmonton, Alberta. He first came to UBC in September of 1945 and graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Forestry degree in 1950. In 1952, he qualified as a Professional Registered Forester. He was involved in the forest industry in British Columbia for 57 years, working with people at all levels and throughout the province. In 1978, at the age of 55, he founded Slocan Forest Products Ltd. and over the next 23 years built it into one of the leading lumber producers in North America. Dr. Barber retired as Chairman in February 2002.

Dr. Barber’s leadership has been recognized throughout his career. He received numerous forestry and industry awards, and has been appointed to the Order of Canada, the Order of British Columbia and the Canadian Business Hall of Fame.

The latest issue of Friends, UBC Library’s newsletter, is now available online. 

To receive this publication in print or to sign-up for other news, visit the About Us section of the Library website.

One of the massive card catalogues is being used to keep track of the 5,000-book collection donated by Denman residents.

Jean Cockburn moved to Denman after her retirement as a librarian at Douglas College. She took on the community library “as a bit of a project.”

“There was no equipment,” Cockburn says. “No trolleys, no card catalogue – all the cards were written by hand and kept in old metal drawers.”

A former colleague helped prospect for the needed items. Only one place still had card catalogues available: UBC Library’s Library Processing Centre (LPC), which was being vacated to accommodate research units and the School of Population and Public Health.

The card catalogue that made a trip to Denman Island squashed in the back of Cockburn’s Subaru wagon was one of thousands of items that were removed from the LPC. These likely would have ended up in a landfill, but for a one-woman sustainability effort co-ordinated by Mary Cheng, Library Administrative Clerk.

Where possible, Cheng saw that the Library’s surplus goods got a second life. Her careful records include sheaves of thank you letters from homeless shelters, non-profit organizations and many schools that have hauled away the Library’s unneeded furnishings – including study carrels, oak tables, assorted chairs and room dividers.

Denman’s Cockburn is using the Library’s circulation cards and due date slips. The Dora Drinkwater Library hasn’t yet gone electronic (it circulates about eight books a day), so these come in handy.

“I was really impressed with the generosity and conviviality of UBC,” Cockburn says. “It’s a very large organization and here I approached one individual, she passed it on, and everyone said, ‘Yeah, I can make this happen.’

“I feel good about it,” Cheng nods. “Everything is balanced now: the tax dollars spent, and the environment. I know the furniture went to a good home.”

Dr. William C. Gibson, one of the Library’s strongest and mostenduring supporters, passed away last year at the age of 95. His UBC legacy endures in the generations of medical students he taught, inthe vast body of his scholarly work, in his books of wry wisdom, andmost visibly in Woodward Library, one of his proudest achievements.

Born in Ottawa in 1913, Gibson grew up in Victoria. He completed a bachelor’s degree in 1933 as part of UBC’s first graduating class in commerce, then pursued medical studies at McGill and a Ph.D. at Oxford. Gibson’s distinguished career at UBC spanned 30 years, including successive posts as Researcher and Clinical Associate Professor, Director of the Kinsmen Laboratory for Neurological Research, and Professor and Head of the History of Medicine and Science Department.

At a memorial service in Vancouver, Gibson’s son-in-law described him as “a historian who looked forward,” says Gibson’s daughter Kate. “That’s exactly who he was.”

Passions and projects

Legendary stories abound about Gibson’s love of medical history books and his ability to convince wealthy friends to fund worthy projects. These two passions united when in 1960, he and several colleagues brought P.A. “Puggy” Woodward, scion of the department store family, to a dim and musty hole in the core of the Central Library. All they had to do was show him the sorry conditions in which a small treasure trove of rare and early medical texts were being stored.

Woodward emerged from the basement ready to bankroll the construction of a medical library. Gibson was instrumental in bringing rare treasures to campus that would be showcased in the building, including Laurentius Valla’s Elegant Latin Language, printed in 1476, and a rare first edition of William Harvey’s revolutionary 1628 work on blood circulation, De Motu Cordis.

“If there was something he thought was a good project, he would raise heaven and earth to get it done,” remarked Anna Leith, an Emerita UBC Librarian who became Head of Woodward Library in 1967.

“So we modestly designed a building to last 200 years, in which any wall, counter or catalogue could be moved within 20 minutes,” Gibson wrote in a 1982 speech to the National Library of Medicine. “I don’t want to build a book cemetery,” he quoted Woodward as saying.

“I want milestones of science – the first time any new discovery was published. I want the students to see these, and appreciate that UBC has them!”

Gibson’s contact with the neurology greats of the 19th and 20th centuries made him want to share those experiences with students and faculty at UBC, said Dr. Patrick L. McGeer, a student of Gibson’s in the 1950s, and now an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry.

“He recognized the aura that went with greatness. He brought it here physically – the evidence of it – it’s all those rare books in the Woodward Memorial Room. That’s his attempt to expose UBC and the Medical School to some aspect of greatness.”

- This article originally appeared in the Friends Summer 2010 newsletter. To read the entire issue, click here.