Tucked away from public view, beyond the limits of the B.C. legislature\u2019s guided tours, lies one of the province\u2019s best-kept hidden gems.<\/p>\n
Making your way through the maze-like halls of the government building, you can eventually find the legislative library.<\/p>\n
As visitors enter the premises, they are met by architecture that blends the grandeur of Versailles with the elegance of Oxford\u2019s historic reading rooms, featuring towering scagliola columns, Carrara marble walls imported from Italy and reading rooms lined with Honduran mahogany.<\/p>\n
Stretching back more than a century, the legislative library remains dedicated to preserving the province\u2019s past, present and future.<\/p>\n
Birth of a library<\/p>\n
The idea of a provincial library took shape long before B.C. joined Confederation. In 1863, a small grant from the colonial legislature funded the establishment of a library. Shortly after, a few books were purchased and shelved unattended in a single room, said library director Peter Gourlay.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt kind of slowly built up, until they appointed essentially a professional full-time person to run it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Three decades after its inception, the library welcomed its first librarian, E. Gosnell. By then, the provincial library\u2019s collection had grown from a few books to a modest 3,000 items.<\/p>\n
To accomplish his lofty ambition of creating a library that served not only the legislative assembly but the rest of the province, Gosnell worked to acquire as many works as possible.<\/p>\n
Within a few years, the library rapidly outgrew its space. Thanks to Gosnell and his successor, E.O.S. Scholefield, the library\u2019s collection swelled from 3,000 items to 18,000.<\/p>\n
Spilling into nine adjacent rooms, legislature staff considered transforming the nearby kitchen and dining room into additional library space.<\/p>\n
When plans were made to expand the parliament buildings, a push for a full-fledged, dedicated space for the library followed.<\/p>\n
In 1911, famed British architect Francis Rattenbury, designer of the original buildings and the nearby Empress Hotel, returned to lead the expansion project. It included two wings of offices and the library to the south of the main block.<\/p>\n
And this time, the provincial library received the space and attention it deserved, said Gourlay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey wanted to build it as a showpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n
In September of the following year, the cornerstone was laid, and it took three years to build the extension. By the summer of 1915, library staff began moving into their new space. Within a few weeks, the library\u2019s entire collection \u2014 counting tens of thousands of items at this point \u2014 was transferred, and the space opened to the public on Sept. 15.<\/p>\n
When construction was finished, the cost came to $1.2 million \u2014 slightly more than the cost of the original parliament buildings.<\/p>\n
Serving the province<\/p>\n
First called the Provincial Library, and also home to the province\u2019s archives, the institution was established with the goal of creating a library that could serve people across B.C., from the bustling cities of the mainland to the most remote communities.<\/p>\n
Starting in 1898, the library launched its travelling library program, which sent collections of books anywhere in the province that required them. By 1919, the service had almost 200 travelling collections in circulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d have a local sponsor that\u2026 would have everything you need to run a little library,\u201d said Gourlay, adding that books could be anywhere, from lumber camps to lighthouses. \u201cWe did that for close to 100 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
A new role<\/p>\n
In the 1970s, with the archives having moved to a new location on Belleville Street, the library began to reassess its role. As libraries started appearing throughout the province, the need for a single, provincially accessible service gradually became obsolete.<\/p>\n
As a result, the institution changed its name from the provincial library to the legislative library, refocusing its mandate on serving members of the legislative assembly and their staff, making it very different from the average neighbourhood library.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big difference is our clientele and what we do,\u201d said Gourlay. \u201cWe do more in-depth research than at a public library. We can spend time to really dig into a topic if that\u2019s what our clients are interested in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dedicated to safeguarding the province\u2019s legislative history, the library now mainly reflects the interests of the community it serves.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn our collection, you\u2019ll find almost nothing on topics that are solely the federal government\u2019s responsibility,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have very little on foreign affairs but we have lots on forestry, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n
A lasting legacy <\/p>\n
Today, 111 years since its construction, the library remains virtually the same, said Gourlay. The same chairs, the same tables and the same good ol\u2019 original Otis birdcage elevator are still in use, which Gourlay believes to be the oldest elevator still operating in Victoria and perhaps B.C.<\/p>\n
Employing about 20 staff, the library now boasts a collection of more than 500,000 items, as well as 200,000 digital entries.<\/p>\n
While the Legislative Library\u2019s collection may pale in comparison with UBC\u2019s 8.3 million items, Gourlay said it holds the province\u2019s largest collection of government publications, which make up nearly half of its 500,000-item collection.<\/p>\n
Spread across six floors, the library holds rows upon rows of items, from bound newspapers dating back to 1869 to modern fiction. But perhaps its most intriguing collection is hidden from public view in the rare book vault inside Gourlay\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Once the massive door opens, visitors are met with a small room containing about 1,500 books, including a Geneva Bible dating to 1612, a book written and inscribed by Queen Victoria and perhaps the library\u2019s most famous item: Shakespeare\u2019s Second Folio, published in 1632.<\/p>\n
One of only three known copies in Canada \u2014 the others held by UBC and the University of Toronto \u2014 the Legislative Library\u2019s copy is one of roughly 250 known worldwide. Despite its nearly 400-year history, Gourlay said the book remains in \u201cvery good shape,\u201d with no missing pages or major damage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last time we had it appraised was in 2019, and I think it was about half a million dollars,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Gourlay said a large portion of the vault\u2019s collection came from a single purchase made in 1930, much of it consisting of Elizabethan-era books.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was purchased off an eccentric man who had come over from England in the 19th century because he wanted to get away from everything,\u201d he said, adding that the aristocrat corresponded with famous authors of the time, including Rudyard Kipling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen he wanted to move back to England, he was getting old, so he sold part of his collection to us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
While the library\u2019s mandate and role have evolved, Gourlay considers himself fortunate to lead one of the province\u2019s most important institutions for preserving knowledge, more than a century after its inception.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s vital to preserve the records we have of the B.C. government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tucked away from public view, beyond the limits of the B.C. legislature\u2019s guided tours, lies one of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-870192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/870193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}