Bringing History to the Library: University-Community Engagement in the Academic Library

Through the power of easily accessible and engaging new digital media technologies, family and oral histories can give voice to the unknown and overlooked stories of immigrants and their families--stories that often never make it beyond the children or the grandchildren. The academic library can be a natural focal point for this interaction and exchange between academia and community. As a 3-year community-based research project at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Chinese Canadian Stories: Uncommon Histories from a Common Past is a $1.17 million project funded by the Canadian federal government's Community Historical Recognition Program (CHRP) that positions the UBC Library as a gathering place for community outreach and community-based research. Through this project, it can be said that UBC Library is making a difference in correcting the past's erasures in Canada's national memory, working with academics, libraries, and archives as well as the diverse communities of Canada--communities whose stories are still underrepresented in historical records, innovatively creating a different approach to library and archiving that brings together communities and students at UBC Library. (Contains 2 figures.)