The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

Treasures of our Memorial Library Our Sources of Specific Reference Data One day, your scribe was ruminating on the more common reasons for referring to our library's shelves. The two most usual motives, I thought, must be 1) entertainment and 2) enlightenment - or perhaps more simply, just information. Well, I reflected, entertainment is well served by almost any self-respecting library. Perhaps the dissemination of information is a motive just as often served by OUR library, or perhaps even more so. And then, it seemed to me, the information most often sought there, among the plethora of sources, probably. Is likely to concern Canada, or -more specifically - British Columbia. So, with a sort of missionary zeal, I set out to scout the offerings on our library's reference shelves. With the benign assistance of library staff, I was then confronted by a battery of books and magazines dealing primarily with these subjects. These stacks were massive, almost intimidating. But the stock, even at a glance, was incredibly rich and detailed, silently inviting and intriguing. At first, I found the sheer mass of the material a bit daunting, but soon I found the range of titles offered invited more and more study. Here indeed was another Treasure of Our Library, bountiful almost beyond measure. Inevitably, a lot of these tomes were in handsome sets, their extent almost breath-taking. In growing wonder, I started recording dates and numbers of volumes. Large, handsome books in matching sets offered "Debates of the House of Commons, Canada", in annual bindings spanning the years 1978 to 1992. How many books? One hundred and fifty-seven! What millions of words, what hours of speeches, what vast expenses all these represented, I thought. Yet they surely recorded limitless proposals and effects touching all living Canadians - and even many dead ones - year by year. Staggering on, I next found "The Canadian Year Book", dated from 1913 to 1979 - 25 volumes, followed in serried ranks by these: 1) "Canadian Almanac & Directory", from 1962 to 2003 (36 volumes) 2) "Corpus Almanac & Canadian Sourcebook", 1972 to 2003 (36 volumes) 3) "Census of Canada", as much as three volumes per year 4) "Canadian Sourcebook", 3 giant volumes 5) "Province of British Columbia - Debates of the Legislative Assembly (Hansard)", 1974 to 1982 - and so on and on. Turning to single volume reference texts, which appeared almost beyond number, I noticed just these few especially: 1) "A Bibliography of Works on Canadian Foreign Relations" 2) "Electoral Boundaries Commission, British Columbia" 3) "Immigration Statistics" 4) "The Canadian Chemical Industry" And so I could go on, for pages and pages. Wondering about the actual usefulness of this tremendous trove of records, I asked some members of the library's staff how often such material is consulted by clients. They have answers necessarily a bit inexact. It depends on the fact that this vast compendium lies in a closed room, from which items are brought out only on request. "Recent" publications are consulted "fairly frequently", but "older" stock is sought much less often. Yet, when it is needed, there is a good chance you may examine it without a need to search any farther. GOOD SHOW! Ted Hill