The University of British Columbia Library is the library system of the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks among the top thr ...

(UBC). The library is one of the 124 members of the

Association of Research Libraries The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and resea ...

(ARL). In 2017, UBC Library ranked 29th among members of the ARL for the number of volumes in library (physical volumes), making it the third largest Canadian academic library after the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

and the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a Public university, public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexande ...

. However, UBC Library ranked 23rd for the titles held (physical and online documents) and second in Canada, and had a materials expenditures of $13.8 million, placing it 44th. UBC Library is one of the largest

research libraries A research library is a library which contains an in-depth collection of material on one or several subjects.(Young, 1983; p. 188) A research library will generally include an in-depth selection of materials on a particular topic or set of to ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by to ...

, with 13 branches and divisions at UBC and at other locations, including branches at Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre, and one at the

UBC Okanagan The UBC's Okanagan Campus (commonly referred to as UBC Okanagan and UBCO) is University of British Columbia's campus located in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. The campus is the research and innovation hub in the province's southern interio ...

campus. As of 2019, UBC Library's collection comprises 8.3 million items, including 2.8 million e-books, 5.3 million

microform Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. ...

s, 440,000 journal titles and more than 923,000 maps,

video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...

s and other multimedia materials. During the year 2018–2019, the UBC community downloaded 3.4 million ebooks and 7.4 million journal articles, the equivalent of 89 journal article downloads and 41 ebook downloads per person. UBC Library has the largest collection of Asian-language materials in North America and the largest biomedical collection in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

. It is a depository library for publications of the governments of

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, for ...

(BC),

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the n ...

and the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

. The Library's collections of special and unique materials include the archives of Canadian author and artist Douglas Coupland, the Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs (consisting of more than 18,000 rare and unique early

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s of

), the H. Colin Slim Stravinsky Collection (the largest collection of its kind in Canada, including more than 130 items documenting the work and life of

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

) and the Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection, containing more than 25,000 rare and one-of-a-kind items relating to the discovery of BC, the development of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canad ...

, and Chinese immigration to Canada. The collection includes documents, books, maps, posters, paintings, photographs, silver, glass, ceramic ware and other artifacts. In October 2015, UBC Library opened its newest facility, Library Preservation and Archives (PARC), a new modular storage facility designed to accommodate the future growth of library collections. The building is located at UBC Vancouver's South Campus (in the Research Precinct) and provides 2,280 square metres of high-density collection storage. It can store about 1.6 million volumes and the facility also houses a campus-wide

records management Records management, also known as records and information management, is an organizational function devoted to the management of information in an organization throughout its life cycle, from the time of creation or receipt to its eventual dispos ...

service.

Major branches

Asian Library

Since 1959, the Asian Library, located in the Asian Centre since 1981, houses one of the largest research collection in Asian languages in North America. Its holdings in Chinese, Japanese,

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

Tibetan Tibetan may mean: * of, from, or related to Tibet * Tibetan people, an ethnic group * Tibetan language: ** Classical Tibetan, the classical language used also as a contemporary written standard ** Standard Tibetan, the most widely used spoken diale ...

, Persian,

Punjabi Punjabi, or Panjabi, most often refers to: * Something of, from, or related to Punjab, a region in India and Pakistan * Punjabi language * Punjabi people * Punjabi dialects and languages Punjabi may also refer to: * Punjabi (horse), a British Th ...

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural diffusion ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
'' Indonesian exceed 710,000 volumes as of June 2020. As of April 2022, the library includes 203,000 Chinese language books and ebooks, 250,000 Japanese language books and ebooks, 42,000 Hindi language books and ebooks and 38,000 Korean language books and ebooks. Subject material about Asia in English and other European languages, as well as Asian materials in non-Asian languages, are kept in Koerner Library and other branches. Asia-related

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...

materials are located in the Law Library. Monographs in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

, Marathi, Rajasthani, Assamese,

Nepali Nepali or Nepalese may refer to : Concerning Nepal * Anything of, from, or related to Nepal * Nepali people, citizens of Nepal * Nepali language, an Indo-Aryan language found in Nepal, the current official national language and a language spoken ...

and

are shelved in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Special materials include Japanese government publications, research materials on Chinese Canadian settlement in British Columbia and the Pearl Delta Area as well as

Japanese Canadian are Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry. Japanese Canadians are mostly concentrated in Western Canada, especially in the province of British Columbia, which hosts the largest Japanese community in the country with the majority of them livin ...

studies collections. The Asian Library's rare book collection, mainly from the Puban collection, ranks first in North America. The Chinese collection ranked third in North America in number of volumes at the time of publication of Endymion Wilkinson's ''Chinese History: A Manual'' in 2000.

Irving K. Barber Learning Centre/Main Library

UBC's Main Library underwent major renovations beginning in 2002. In phase one, the north wing was demolished and rebuilt. It now houses the bookstacks of the facility. Once the renovated north wing opened, the old south wing and "heritage core" of the Main Library was closed, with the south wing being demolished and the heritage core stripped to the original frame and exterior from 1925. The South Wing was officially opened to the public on February 25, 2008, with the heritage core opening in late March 2008. The building is now known as the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, named in honour of donor

Irving K. Barber Irving Kearl "Ike" Barber OC OBC (February 14, 1923 April 13, 2012) was a Canadian forest industrialist and philanthropist. Though originally from Alberta, Barber spent most of his life in British Columbia, where he founded Slocan Forest Produc ...

. Notable features include the first

Automated Storage and Retrieval System An automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS or AS/RS) consists of a variety of computer-controlled systems for automatically placing and retrieving loads from defined storage locations. Automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) are ty ...

(ASRS) in Canada, referred to as the "library robot." The system increases the amount of storage space available, but has been criticized for preventing browsing. The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre houses the Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC) and University Archives divisions (level one) and the Music, Art and Architecture (levels three and four). The Chung Collection, a designated national treasure, is located in the RBSC space, and focuses on the

, the Asian experience in Canada, and West Coast history and exploration. The Learning Centre is also home to the Chapman Learning Commons on level three, located in the restored historic core of the old Main Library. Artwork on display around the Learning Centre includes pieces from noted artists such as John Nutter, Kevin DuBois and First Nations artist Brent Sparrow. The Institute for stained glass in Canada has documented the

stained glass Stained glass is coloured glass as a material or works created from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant religious buildings. Although tradition ...

at the UBC Main Library.

Okanagan Libraries

Library Education Development (UBC Okanagan)

UBC Library also serves the university's Okanagan campus in

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ' ...

. Two library buildings on campus are interconnected with the southern "Library" building containing the Okanagan Library with open collections and access to

Okanagan Regional Library The Okanagan Regional Library (ORL) system serves the Okanagan region of the Canadian province of British Columbia. Its administrative headquarters are in Kelowna. The system covers 59,000 square kilometers of area, and serves 360,000 people thr ...

, while the northern "The Commons" building containing media labs, special collections and archives. In 2014–15, the Okanagan campus Library had 688,000 library visits., answering more than 17,000 in-person inquiries at their Library Service Desk. The Okanagan Library assumed responsibility for campus writing services in 2014, and launched a new Writing & Research Services unit. 2014 also marked the launch of UBC Okanagan's special collections program, with collections relating to the history, literature and culture of the

Okanagan Valley The Okanagan ( ), also known as the Okanagan Valley and sometimes as the Okanagan Country, is a region in the Canadian province of British Columbia defined by the basin of Okanagan Lake and the Canadian portion of the Okanagan River. It is p ...

. In 2014, UBC Okanagan's students voted in a referendum to contribute up to $10 million toward the expansion of the campus’ Library and Learning Centre. The renovations will add 45,000 square feet of space, more than doubling the size of the existing library. In Fall 2015, the Innovation Library - a collaboration between the UBC Okanagan Library and the

- opened to support the Okanagan campus' students, faculty, and staff, as well as community researchers in the Okanagan. The Innovation Library is located downtown in the Okanagan Regional Library's Kelowna Branch. In 2017, UBC Okanagan partnered with numerous local museums and archives throughout the Okanagan region to initiate the Digitized Okanagan History project. The project digitizes historical photographs and records related to the history of B.C.'s Southern Interior, and provides access to them online.

Walter C. Koerner Library

Koerner Library, designed by

Arthur Erickson Arthur Charles Erickson (June 14, 1924 – May 20, 2009) was a Canadian architect and urban planner. He studied Engineering at the University of British Columbia and, in 1950, received his B.Arch. (Honours) from McGill University. He is known ...

, was built in 1997, replacing Sedgewick Library. Koerner houses humanities and social sciences, government publications, journals and microforms, and numeric data files, the Map & Atlas Collection, and the UBC Research Commons. It is home to nearly 1.3 million items. Its

postmodern architecture Postmodern architecture is a style or movement which emerged in the 1960s as a reaction against the austerity, formality, and lack of variety of modern architecture, particularly in the international style advocated by Philip Johnson and Henr ...

contrasts with the

Gothic revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

design of the original Main Library (now the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre) on the other side of Main Mall. Koerner is also home to the university's

Interlibrary loan Interlibrary loan (abbreviated ILL, and sometimes called interloan, interlending, document delivery, document supply, or interlibrary services, abbreviated ILS) is a service where patrons of one library can borrow materials and receive photocopies ...

program.

Woodward Library

The Woodward Library's collection covers a broad range of disciplines in support of learning and research in the Faculties of Applied Science, Dentistry, Forestry, Land & Food Systems, Medicine, Pharmaceutical Sciences and Science. The collection covers a range of subject areas, including agriculture, biology, botany, chemistry, computer science, dentistry, earth and ocean sciences, engineering, food science, forestry, mathematics, medicine, nursing, nutrition, pharmacy, physics, public health, statistics, wood science and zoology. Woodward Library has the largest biomedical collection in Western Canada and a strong history of medicine and science collection.

X̱wi7x̱wa Library

X̱wi7x̱wa (pronounced whei-wha) Library is one of the only Aboriginal branches of a university library in Canada. Located adjacent to the First Nations

Longhouse A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America. Many were built from timber and often re ...

, it houses a collection of 12,000 items, including to 6,000 books and 450 videos relating to

First Nations in British Columbia First Nations in British Columbia constitute many First Nations governments and peoples in the province of British Columbia. Many of these Indigenous Canadians are affiliated in tribal councils. Ethnic groups include the Haida, Coast Salish, ...

, and resources on

Indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

from across Canada and internationally. The name comes from the

Squamish Nation The Squamish Nation, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw () in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Sníchim (Squamish language), is an Indian Act government originally imposed on the Squamish (''Sḵwx̱wú7mesh'') by the Federal Government of Canada in the late 19th c ...

word meaning "

echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

." The name was gifted by Chief Simon Baker of the Squamish Nation. Established in May 1993, the X̱wi7x̱wa Library became a branch of the UBC Library in 2005. The library is the result of a 1984 Stauffer Foundation Grant to the Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP) that provided funds to build the collection. This collection was then gifted to the X̱wi7x̱wa Library when opening in 1993. The library also received a $1 million gift by William and June Bellman the same year. The classification used by the library reflects efforts to decolonize the current library classification systems. The library uses a British Columbia variant of the Xwi7xwa classification system, developed by Kahnawake librarian,

Brian Deer Brian Deer is a British investigative reporter, best known for inquiries into the drug industry, medicine and social issues for ''The Sunday Times''. Deer's investigative nonfiction book, ''The Doctor Who Fooled the World,'' was published in Se ...

, for the National Indian Brotherhood in the 1970s.

Other branches and units

* The Biomedical Branch Library is located at Vancouver Hospital and Health Sciences Centre. * The David Lam Management Research Library houses materials relating to commerce and business administration, and the Canaccord Learning Commons. * The Education Library houses curriculum materials and other education materials, including children's books. * The Innovation Library a collaboration between UBC Okanagan Library and the

(ORL) and located at ORL's

branch. * The Law Library houses law-related materials, and is located in the Allard Hall, the new UBC Faculty of Law building. * The University Archives is the official repository of the university's corporate records and information * The Digitization Centre preserves, collects, organizes, disseminates and provides access to the Library's collections * cIRcle is the university's digital open access institutional repository for research and teaching materials created by the UBC community *The Library Preservation and Archives (PARC), is a storage facility for low-circulation items There are also several

theological Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the s ...

libraries associated with

Regent College Regent College is an interdenominational evangelical Christian College of Christian studies, and an affiliated college of the University of British Columbia, located next to the university's campus in the University Endowment Lands west of ...

and the Vancouver School of Theology. The John Richard Allison Library at

houses 185,000 items, including 140,000 print books, with a strong representation of biblical studies, pastoral studies, and Protestant intellectual thought.

Partnerships and collaboration

The Library is a member of the

Canadian Association of Research Libraries The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) was established in 1976 and brings together thirty-one research libraries. Twenty-nine members are university libraries, plus Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and the National Research Council ...

and the

; CRKN / RCDR; the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions; the Council of Prairie and Pacific University Libraries; the Center for Research Libraries; the Council of Post-Secondary Library Directors, British Columbia; the BC Electronic Library Network; and

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system develope ...

References

{{Authority control University of British Columbia University of British Columbia libraries Academic libraries in Canada Library buildings completed in 2008