By Dave Obee
Foreword by Sarah Ellis.
Introduction by Iona Campagnolo”
Distinguished Alum, Sarah Ellis has written the forward for the recently released, The Library Book: A History of Service to British Columbia.
The range of years explored in various levels of detail is broad, beginning with descriptions of small book collections that accompanied eighteenth-century explorers and later, notably, those of the Royal Engineers (1858), whose donated volumes formed the basis of what is now credited with being the first formal public library in the province: […]public institutions faced a host of challenges: devastating fires, financial crises, world wars, epidemics, and, especially, the Depression of the 1930s, when public libraries afforded much valued warmth, congeniality, and advice to unemployed men.
