MathSciNet has moved to a new system of authentication that is causing issues. eResources is investigating.
As a workaround, please access MathSciNet directly via the Library Resource Page instead of logging in via the website.
The Resource Page link is: https://resources.library.ubc.ca/page.php?details=mathscinet&id=36
The cost of journal subscriptions, particularly for major publisher packages, has become unsustainable for universities across North America, with prices expanding beyond many libraries’ budgets.
At the same time, Canadian universities are working through broader budget challenges due to several factors, including pressure on international student enrollments and increased operating costs.
UBC Library’s collections budget is impacted by these two situations. Almost 40 per cent of our budget put toward academic journals goes to package agreements with five large for-profit publishers: Elsevier, Springer, Taylor & Francis, Wiley and Sage. With increased inflation and ongoing fluctuations in the USD/CAD exchange rate, it is especially important for us to look strategically at our spending, and plan for the sustainability of our collections budget into the future.
There is a growing movement among academic institutions to rethink this subscription model, and in many cases, reset the relationship with these five for-profit publishers. In order to sustain the diversity of our collections and avoid future deficits, it is crucial that we join these institutions and adjust how we provide access to serial titles and online publishers moving forward.
Effective December 31, 2025, UBC Library will end its “all titles” agreement with the publisher Sage, changing how you access some Sage titles moving forward.
We are committed to helping you access the materials you need. UBC Library purchased all of Sage’s backfiles, ensuring you have immediate access to all articles in Sage titles through 2025. New articles within Sage titles we no longer subscribe to will continue to be available through interlibrary loan, which often provides same-day access, or access within one to two days.
This decision was made based on extensive evaluation of usage data in relation to costs. Among the five major serial packages that we subscribe to, the Sage package deal is the least used by UBC researchers. It is also the serial package with the lowest rate of publications by UBC authors, year after year.
On December 31, we will also be ending our current agreement with the Public Library of Science Journals (PLOS). Since 2023, UBC Library was able to support open access articles by UBC authors publishing in PLOS journals. The agreement with PLOS was an annual cost paid by UBC Library that ensured all UBC authors’ APCs were 100% waived. Prior to 2023 these APCs were covered by UBC authors’ research funds, and we are returning to this model.
These decisions apply to all Library users across UBC Vancouver and Okanagan.
We do not make these decisions lightly and understand that they represent a loss of convenience for some titles.
While budget pressures are the impetus for making this move now, this change is also a principled one. This system is out of step with our values and our budget, and decisive action is needed to help shift the publishing model.
I encourage you to visit our Collections Budget page to learn more about this decision and the extensive data analysis that supported this change. We have developed an FAQ to help answer your questions.
Sincerely,
Susan E. Parker
LAW LIBRARY reference room (level 2): KE4120 .P82 2025
P. Bryden et al, Public Law: Cases, Commentary, and Analysis, 5th ed (Emond Montgomery Publications, 2025).
Recently the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office released its 2024/2025 Impact and Activity Report, showcasing some of the year’s highlights and accomplishments.
For more information, or to share feedback please contact scholarly.communications@ubc.ca
Photo courtesy Paul Joseph / UBC Brand & Marketing / UBC Studios.
The cIRcle team is happy to announce the release of our 2024-2025 Impact and Activity Report! Read on to learn more about some of our achievements and projects from the past year.
cIRcle’s collection now holds over 86,000 items from UBC’s global community, with more than 3,500 items deposited in the last year. Students continue to be our biggest contributing group – since 2022-2023, undergraduate submissions to cIRcle have increased by 75%.
Each year as we develop new and continuing partnerships with the UBC community, we celebrate the addition of unique material such as the Kaska Language Learning Resources, including flashcards, audio recordings, and instructional materials from the Kaska Cards App and the Kaska Language Website.
cIRcle continues to support the open access sharing and preservation of research materials created by UBC faculty, students, and our larger community of scholarship. Our collection of alternative research outputs grew this year with the addition of the
As we continue preparations for migration to , the open repository software used by thousands of academic institutions, our team has continued to improve the discovery & use of cIRcle’s collections.
The Theses and Dissertations in cIRcle : Discovery and Use guide offers some tips & tricks on how to successfully search for theses in cIRcle. Beyond cIRcle, more than 56,000 of UBC’s theses and dissertations can now be found via Library & Archives Canada’s Theses Canada portal, which brings together theses and dissertations from universities across the country.
Our cIRcle Blog regularly highlights new items, events, and projects going on at cIRcle and across the UBC community. Read about self-archiving policies, the Paper Pledge for the Planet, and more!
In our previous blog post, we introduced the remarkable Yucho Chow, a 20th-century Vancouver photographer who pushed back against the discriminatory racial practices of the era by welcoming anyone—regardless of race or nationality—into his studio.
The Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection and the Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs, both available to browse through UBC Open Collections, feature an array of Yucho Chow’s work, including a remarkable album containing studio portraits and ephemera from his business operations.
Advertisement on studio envelope, 1930s (Uno Langmann Collection)
This week, we delve deeper into Chow’s works, examining his photographic style and techniques. We also look at Chow’s legacy, including his lasting impact on marginalized communities in Vancouver, and the amazing project that once again brought his photographs to light.
Photographic style
In alignment with the progressive nature of his business practices, Chow also took a modern and resourceful approach to his craft. He employed creative photo editing skills to “reunite” families through images, collaging family members into the photographs that they could not be physically present for. This was especially important during the 24 years that Canada’s Chinese Immigration Act kept families apart.
Portrait of family with collage, circa 1930s (Uno Langmann Collection)
Another enticing element of Chow’s service was his commitment to high-quality props and backdrops. After his studio was damaged by a fire in 1935, he replaced his previous backdrop—one that expressed “European opulence”—with an Art Deco-themed set, which can be spotted in many of his surviving portraits today.
Group portrait in front of Art Deco backdrop, circa 1930s (Uno Langmann Collection)
As the studio was open 24 hours a day, Chow relied heavily on his family’s help. His eldest daughter, Mabel, played a critical role in the studio’s operations, assisting her father in setting up equipment and developing film. His daughter Jessie used oil paints to provide the studio’s colour services, initially filling in minor details, but eventually moving on to colouring entire photographs.
Hand-painted family wedding portrait, circa 1930s (Uno Langmann Collection)
Legacy
Yucho Chow extensively documented Vancouver’s South Asian community, both in his studio and at cultural events. As cultural researcher Naveen Girn states, without him, there would be “almost no photographs of the early [Vancouver] South Asian community”. Select photos are available to browse through the South Asian Canadian Digital Archive.
In 2024, well-known Vancouver graffiti artist Smokey D. memorialized Chow in a massive mural in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside neighbourhood, depicting him with a camera alongside the phrase “Welcome to Chinatown”.
The Yucho Chow Project
After Chow’s death in 1949, his sons Philip and Peter continued to run the studio. When they decided to close its doors in 1986, they were faced with a dilemma of what to do with the studio’s massive collection of prints and negatives. Unaware of the full magnitude of their father’s impact, they opted to dispose of the five truckloads worth of materials. While an unfortunate loss, this did not stop Catherine Clement from embarking on the task of tracking down Chow’s works in 2011, unearthing photos from family photo albums, institutional archives, personal collections, and even eBay.
Members of the Chinese student concert in aid of the U.B.C. Stadium Fund, 1931 (Chung Collection)
In 2019, Clement and her team mounted select materials from their 200-photograph collection in an exhibition at the Chinese Cultural Centre, which led to another 300 images being shared with the project. In 2020, they published an award-winning coffee table book entitled “Chinatown Through a Wide Lens: The Hidden Photographs of Yucho Chow.” Upon completion of their incredible project in 2021, Clement and her team donated the collection, which by this time encompassed approximately 600 photos, to the City of Vancouver Archives.
Reclaiming histories
The influence of immigrant communities on Vancouver’s cultural identity has often been obscured through their omission from the city’s historical visual materials. Though much of Chow’s prolific body of work has been lost over time, his surviving images reflect the enduring presence of these communities, countering Canada’s many whitewashed, colonial historical narratives.
Portrait of public servant and community leader Won Alexander Cumyow, circa 1910 (Chung Collection)
Yucho Chow’s work certainly illuminates his own history, including his values, family life, and immigrant experience. But, as Clement states, it also illuminates the histories of the many other “ordinary and everyday people who existed here, who made a contribution here, and were brave enough to come”.
Yucho Chow and family at their residence, between 1900 and 1930 (Uno Langmann Collection)
Learn more
How to Identify a Yucho Chow (Yucho Chow Project)
Yucho Chow Photo Studio (permanent exhibit, Chinatown Storytelling Centre)
References
Cheung, C. (2020, December 29). How Yucho Chow’s photos reframed Vancouver history. The Tyee. https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2020/12/29/Yucho-Chow-Photos-Reframe-Vancouver/
Chinatown through a wide lens: The hidden photographs of Yucho Chow. (n.d.). Yucho Chow. https://www.yuchochow.ca/
Griffin, K. (2019, May 3). ‘Silent’ Yucho Chow photograph has a story again after being identified by family. Vancouver Sun. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/silent-yucho-chow-photograph-has-a-story-again-after-being-identified-by-family
Peng, J. (2023). Yucho Chow. In The Canadian Encyclopedia. Historica Canada. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/yucho-chow
Yucho Chow. (2025 August 5). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucho_Chow
Photo used with permission of the Mine Water Solutions Conference.
The fifth Mine Water Solutions (MWS) Conference was held at UBC Vancouver from June 16-18, 2025. Co-organized by the Bradshaw Research Initiative for Minerals and Mining (BRIMM) and C3 Alliance, this international technical conference brings together experts in the field of mining and water management to share research and best practices.
cIRcle is pleased to offer permanent, open access to a selection of papers from this year’s conference via the International Conference on Mine Water Solutions (5th : 2025) collection. The wide range of topics include: climate risk and resilience; closure water management; mine planning; mine water characterization; mitigation techniques; monitoring, modelling, and prediction; proactive mine water management; and watershed stewardship.
A few highlights include:
Over its history, the MWS Conference has been held every 2-4 years. Moving forward, the organizers plan to hold the conference every two years, and cIRcle looks forward to continued collaboration with the conference organizers to provide long-term access and preservation to these valuable research materials.
Hosting a UBC-associated conference and want to make the proceedings openly available online via cIRcle? Contact us via the cIRcle Contact Form.
If you’re a UBC faculty member or student who wishes to deposit your own paper or presentation from a conference, see cIRcle’s Submissions page.
Come visit Celebrating 100 Years of UBC at Point Grey, a new pop-up exhibition on display at the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre from September 8 to December 5, 2025.
Presented by UBC Library in collaboration with the UBC Alma Mater Society, the Office of the Provost, the Museum of Anthropology, and the Robert H. Lee Alumni Centre, the exhibition showcases artifacts from every decade of UBC’s 100 years at the Point Grey campus.
“As the university’s archive, UBC Library preserves our shared past and legacy,” says Susan Parker, University Librarian. “This exhibition invites us to deepen our understanding and appreciation for the vision that led to the creation of UBC Point Grey — as we also look forward to adding our own contributions to UBC in its second century.”
Celebrating 100 Years of UBC at Point Grey aims to explore the UBC student experience at Point Grey. This immersive visual exhibit combines artifacts, photography and video interviews with alumni to show how student life and the University has changed, developed and diversified through the decades.
“Created by a dedicated team from the Library and our partners at the Provost’s Office, Alma Mater Society, UBC Alumni Centre and Museum of Anthropology, this exhibition brings UBC’s early history to life, tracing the evolution of student life as it has grown, diversified and reflected social change,” says Katherine Kalsbeek, Head, Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives. “We hope that you will find it is a moving tribute to the university’s legacy and a powerful example of how material and oral histories can tell unforgettable stories.”
“This beautiful spot was a place apart, an area for meditation and education. It’s been a place of physical and emotional learning for a long time.” – Larry Grant, Musqueam Elder and Adjunct Professor, UBC Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies, Honorary Graduate from the Indigenous Teacher Education Program (NITEP) at UBC 2014.
UBC first opened its doors to students at a site nicknamed the “Fairview Shacks,” a cluster of mostly wooden buildings in the Fairview neighborhood of Vancouver that was meant to serve as UBC’s temporary headquarters while construction progressed at the 175-acre site in Point Grey. But the start of World War I put a halt to construction, leading to overcrowding at the Fairview Shacks. In 1922, students organized a protest and campaigned the Provincial government to resume campus construction. With 56,000 petition signatures collected and vocal support from the community, businesses and media, the student campaign was a success and work on the first two permanent buildings at Point Grey—the Science Building and the Library—were completed. UBC officially moved to the Point Grey campus on September 22, 1925, marking the day with an inaugural general assembly.
“The Great Trek showed that students are not just participants in UBC’s story, but authors of it. For the past hundred years, generations of students have built a campus community that reflects their values and ambitions, and that spirit of leadership continues to shape UBC today,” says Riley Huntley, President, Alma Mater Society of UBC.
The move to UBC’s permanent campus location marked a new beginning and the culmination of many years of planning and construction, while student action and initiative have continued to shape UBC’s development in profound ways.
“Think of the Main Mall. To the north, the Canadian flag and the view of water and mountains. To the South, the Reconciliation Pole. Markers of conflict, yes, but also of beauty and hope. In between, buildings where learning happens in structured, principled, rational ways.” – Arthur Ross, Bachelor of Arts in History, 2023.
Our access to National Theatre Collection (1 and 2) and Royal Shakespeare Collection is now via Alexander Street instead of Bloomsbury’s Drama Online.
This switchover happened more suddenly then we thought it would and the eResources team is working on changing the links.
In the meantime, to obtain access to these videos, please search for them at the below links:
Learning Services Librarian
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC Library | Vancouver Campus
Full-Time, 12-month Term
Anticipated Start Date: November 2025
UBC LIBRARY
As one of the world’s leading universities, the University of British Columbia creates an exceptional learning environment that fosters global citizenship, advances a civil and sustainable society, and supports outstanding research to serve the people of British Columbia, Canada and the world.
We honour, celebrate and thank the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam) and Syilx Okanagan peoples on whose territories the main campuses of the University of British Columbia have the privilege to be situated.
The University of British Columbia Library is one of the largest academic libraries in Canada and consistently ranks among the top university research libraries in North America. UBC Library has 14 branches and divisions across two campuses (Vancouver and Kelowna), including an off-site hospital library; a multi-purpose teaching and learning facility, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre; and the Xwi7xwa Library, a centre for academic and community Indigenous scholarship. Almost 300 knowledgeable employees – librarians, management and professional staff, support staff and student staff – provide users with the excellent resources and services that they need to further their research, teaching and learning.
The UBC Library is committed to being a respectful, healthy environment that encourages leadership, collegiality, diversity, individual growth and opportunity. Explore our aspirational values that we strive to uphold and actively incorporate into all aspects of our organization. We are committed to eliminating institutional and structural systems of oppression and power (such as colonialism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, and white supremacy).
Learn more about the UBC Library Strategic Framework and about working with us.
IRVING K. BARBER LEARNING CENTRE, CHAPMAN LEARNING COMMONS
Located in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, The Chapman Learning Commons is a collaborative, innovative learning space that brings together learners of all types – students, faculty, staff and community members. We strive to make the most of technology to support and enhance learning and teaching at UBC.
POSITION OVERVIEW
The Learning Services Librarian will lead the planning and development of partnerships, programs, services, budgets and the assessment of learning support programs and services offered through the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC), particularly the Chapman Learning Commons.
Reports and works closely with the Assistant Director, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC). Works closely with the Learning Commons. Collaborates with UBC Library units, other IKBLC units, UBC departments and other institutions and organizations in the development of programs and services for Learning Commons and IKBLC users.
QUALIFICATIONS
REQUIRED
PREFERRED
TERMS OF APPOINTMENT AND SALARY
Appointment: This is a full-time, 12-month term appointment with an anticipated start date of November 2025.
The successful candidate will be a member of The University of British Columbia Faculty Association and the terms and conditions of appointment are governed by the Collective Agreement between UBC and the UBC Faculty Association (https://www.hr.ubc.ca/faculty-relations/collective-agreements/).
Eligibility: We are only considering applications from librarians with a maximum of 2 years of professional library experience. However, all internal candidates will be considered regardless of years of experience and are encouraged to apply.
Salary: Starting salary is $83,955 to $86,520 per annum. Actual salary offered will be commensurate with experience and academic/professional qualifications, as well as internal parity. UBC also offers a comprehensive benefits package. Information about salary increases can be found in the Collective Agreement: https://www.hr.ubc.ca/faculty-relations/collective-agreements/.
Benefits: Librarian and their dependents are eligible for an extensive benefits package including extended health care coverage, dental coverage, Employee and Family Assistance Program, life insurance, pension and travel benefits. To support families, UBC provides a top-up for eligible employees on maternity or parental leave. Tuition assistance is also available for qualifying employees and dependent children. In addition, librarians/archivists are eligible for professional development funding to support career growth at the university, as well as study leave. Details are available in the Collective Agreement, and for more information see UBC Human Resources:
https://hr.ubc.ca/benefits/eligibility-enrolment/employee-groups. Additional information about relocation to UBC Vancouver can be found here: https://hr.ubc.ca/working-ubc/housing-and-relocation-services.
UBC hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity. All qualified persons are encouraged to apply.
Equity and diversity are essential to academic excellence. An open and diverse community fosters the inclusion of voices that have been underrepresented or discouraged. We encourage applications from members of groups that have been marginalized on any grounds enumerated under the B.C. Human Rights Code, including sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, disability, political belief, religion, marital or family status, age, and/or status as a First Nation, Metis, Inuit, or Indigenous person.
All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.
APPLICATION PROCESS
Applications will include: a detailed and current curriculum vitae; and a letter of application that includes a statement of citizenship/immigration status and indicates the candidate’s education, training and work experience in the areas listed above, as well as how did you hear about this opportunity. One consolidated PDF is preferred.
Please visit the UBC careers website to view the full position description and on how to apply. The application deadline will be at 11:59 p.m. on October 3, 2025.