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As part of BCLA’s 2024 Climate Action Week, the Asian Library and Textile Cartographies Project are hosting a two-part Furoshiki Wrapping for Sustainable Gift-Giving workshop series.
On Tuesday, November 5th, we hosted our first workshop in this series called “Planet-Friendly Wrapping: Making Furoshiki for Sustainable Gift-giving.” This event was hosted in partnership with the international Textile Cartographies Project, an arts-based participatory research group. Led by Dr. Elly Yazdanpanah, a post-doctoral fellow in Art Education at UBC, participants at this workshop sewed together their own pieces of furoshiki fabric out of fabric remnants. Attendees ranged from very proficient at sewing to brand new, but all were able to select fabric remnants of different colours, patterns, and designs and start hand-sewing them into a single sheet of furoshiki measuring approximately 50cm x 50cm. These can be used as a unique and personal way to wrap gifts, while saving scraps of fabric from ending up in landfills in the process!
 Creating Furoshiki out of fabric remnants at our workshop |
 Furoshiki display at the Asian Library |
Our next workshop will be taking place on Tuesday, November 26th from 3:30pm-4:30pm at the Asian Library. Spots are limited, so be sure to register here: https://libcal.library.ubc.ca/calendar/vancouver/furoshiki2
You may purchase furoshiki from the Nikkei Centre for 10% off to be picked up at the second workshop. Orders must be in by Friday, November 22nd at 5:00pm. Please email asian.library@ubc.ca if you are interested in ordering and for the coupon code.
What is Furoshiki? History and Origins
Furoshiki refers to the practice and technique of wrapping treasured items, belongings, and gifts in a piece of cloth. The usage of cloth wraps has been part of Japanese culture for centuries, with the oldest piece of wrapping cloth dating back to the Nara Period (710-794 CE). Records at the time show these fabrics were referred to as “tsutsumi” (包), meaning ‘to wrap’. The term furoshiki itself emerged during the late Muromachi Period (1336-1573 CE) to early Edo period (1603-1868) with its widespread use in public bath houses. Furoshiki was used to wrap individuals’ clothing so they wouldn’t get mixed up with others’ and would then be used to wipe their feet and stand on while they dressed. This explains furoshiki’s etymology: furo (‘bath’, 風呂) and shiki (‘spread’, 敷).
Beyond this initial use, furoshiki became a necessity for people’s everyday lives for wrapping, storing, and carrying objects. This regular use continued until approximately the 1970s with the wide distribution of single-use plastics. Supermarkets and department stores began offering disposable bags, and in the wake of the rapid economic growth after WW2, people started to think of furoshiki as old-fashioned or too much trouble.
Furoshiki Today
With environmental awareness and the need for climate action growing in Japan and around the world, furoshiki is now starting to regain popularity. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike (小池 百合子 ), who was Minister of the Environment from 2003-2006, announced a campaign in March of 2006 called “Mottainai Furoshiki” to promote the use of furoshiki as an alternative to wasteful single-use plastics. An increased interest in traditional Japanese culture within Japan has also led people to rediscover the value of furoshiki.
After the Great East Japan Earthquake and Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster of 2011, artists from Fukushima joined together to host a festival of roughly 13,000 people called Festival FUKUSHIMA!. Due to concerns over radioactive material, scientists recommended spreading some kind of cloth or sheet over the lawn. Organizers collected pieces of cloth from all over Japan to sew together into a giant furoshiki that was spread over the festival grounds. The project has crowd-funded the publication of a book with photographs of each of these large furoshiki, which you can check out from the UBC Asian Library here.
Furoshiki Folding Techniques
At our workshop on Tuesday, November 26th from 3:30-4:30pm, we will work together as a group to practice folding techniques. We have gathered various resources from the web that demonstrate the folding techniques we will be practicing as a group. Below are links to Japanese tutorials that are freely available online:
Basic knots:
For wrapping objects:
To create bags:
Join us on Tuesday, November 26th for a full workshop including these folding techniques and more! Please pre-register here. Again, if you did not attend the first workshop or would like to obtain additional furoshiki, you can purchase furoshiki from the Nikkei Centre for 10% off to be picked up at the second workshop. Orders must be in by Friday, November 22nd at 5:00pm. Please email asian.library@ubc.ca if you are interested in ordering and for the coupon code.
References
Encyclopedia of Japan, s.v. “Furoshiki 風呂敷,” accessed Nov. 5, 2024, https://japanknowledge-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net.
Kakita, Tomoko. Furoshiki and the Japanese Art of Gift Wrapping. London: Laurence King Publishing, 2021.
Japan. Ministry of the Environment 環境省. Koike moto kankyо̄ daiji ga “Mottainai furoshiki” wo seisaku shimashita小池元環境大臣が「もったいないふろしき」を作成しました. Last updated August 2016. https://www.env.go.jp/recycle/info/furoshiki/index.html.
Motion Gallery Crowdfunding Platform. Fukushima dai-furoshiki o hon ni shiyо̄! 福島大風呂敷を本にしよう！ 2023. https://motion-gallery.net/projects/pjfbook.
Ryall, J. (n.d.) The Spirit of Mottainai: Wrapping Beautifully with Furoshiki. Tokyo Metropolitan Government Brochure. https://www.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/english/about/tokyo/documents/tokyo_brochure_06.pdf
Yamada Etsu and Okamoto Hiroshi 山田 悦 と 岡本寛. Wrapping with Fabric: Your Complete Guide to Furoshiki, the Japanese Art of Wrapping. Tokyo: Tuttle, 2014.
UBC Archives has received the Norman Epstein fonds, an archival collection that captures the life and career of Dr. Norman Epstein (1923-2023), a pioneering figure in chemical and biological engineering and political activist.
Born in Montreal, Dr. Epstein earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from McGill University before completing his doctorate at New York University. He joined UBC in 1951 as an instructor of chemical engineering and served as a full professor from 1965 until his retirement in 1988. At UBC, he rapidly established himself as a leading expert in the field of chemical engineering and taught in UBC’s Arts One program, an interdisciplinary course designed to foster critical thinking among first-year students. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Epstein is best known for his definitive work on spouted beds, a key area of research in chemical engineering.
Photo: A copy of Spouted Beds, translated into Russian.
From the biographic sketch in UBC Archive’s inventory, Dr. Epstein was a celebrated academic and a passionate advocate for social and political causes, making his archives a treasure trove for researchers across disciplines. The fonds include personal papers, published works, and correspondence, which offer a deep dive into both his professional achievements and his personal convictions.
Photo: Handwritten notes on index cards, written by Dr. Epstein.
One of the most striking aspects of the collection is the breadth of Dr. Epstein’s interests: “Outside of his professional activities, he was involved in the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Amnesty International and Engineers for Nuclear Disarmament,” says Erwin Wodarczak, Interim Head of UBC Archives. “He spoke on various social and political topics, such as socialism, anarchism, anti-Semitism, Arab-Israeli relations, and the Cold War, and corresponded regularly with prominent social critic Noam Chomsky.”
Dr. Epstein’s activism is well-documented in the fonds, which include speeches, handwritten notes and even index cards from talks he gave on topics such as political radicalism and anti-Semitism. “Dr. Epstein did not shy away from controversial topics,” Wodarczak notes.
Photo: A copy of a speech given by Dr. Epstein, written in pen on lined sheets, next to a program for a presentation by Noam Chomsky.
For researchers, the Norman Epstein archives offer a multifaceted resource, covering a range of topics, from chemical engineering to social activism and the history of UBC. “This collection is a valuable starting point for anyone interested in the recent history of the university, as well as the social and political issues that Dr. Epstein championed,” says Wodarczak.
A complete inventory of the archive is available to view on the library website
We are currently experiencing delays to campus delivery services due to circumstances beyond the Library’s control. Please anticipate longer wait times. For ASRS items, select MAA Library as the pick-up location for the fastest delivery.
When Phil Lind’s grandfather, John (Johnny) Grieve Lind, arrived in what was then part of the Northwest Territories in June 1894, he first traveled to a mining town on Fortymile River. Following the discovery of gold on Bonanza Creek in August 1896, Johnny and several business partners purchased interests in a dozen mining claims in the Klondike – including one of his most famous and wealthy claims, 26 Above Bonanza, pictured below.[1]
26 Above Bonanza ca. 1897, Yukon Territory. RBSC-ARC-1820-PH-0966
With his partners, Johnny bought half of 26 Above in January 1897 for $12,000 cash (around $360,000 today). To prepare it for mining, they purchased lumber, provisions, nails, and tools at high prices and built sluice boxes, flumes, dams, a food tent, and a cabin. By spring 1897, they employed 200 men working two shifts per day. Their payroll alone cost their business $4,000 a day, and Johnny recalls that the returns were “at times enormous and at other times hardly anything.”[2] Sometimes, however, the pay dirt was fabulously rich – in a single day, 26 Above once yielded over $50,000 in gold dust and nuggets. For every dollar Johnny and his partners made, they re-invested it into other claims, until they grew to be large operators; in February 1898, they purchased the other half of 26 Above for $200,000.
In July 1897, when Dawson’s nouveau riche arrived in Seattle and San Francisco carrying half a million in Klondike gold and setting off a mad stampede north, they also carried some of the gold mined from 26 Above Bonanza. Johnny, who cashed out of the Klondike in 1902 and established a cement company in St. Mary’s, Ontario, with his mining partners, was always proud of his role in helping to ignite the famous Klondike Gold Rush (1897-1898).
This image is currently on display at the Chung Lind Gallery. For more information or to plan your visit, please visit the Chung Lind Gallery website.
[1] Mining claims were staked in relation to the first claim, or Discovery claim, on each creek. As Johnny wrote in his family memoir; “Discovery did not have a number, but was always know[n] as discovery. The first claim downstream was No. 1 below, next No. 2 and so [on], as far as they were staked.” John Grieve Lind, 40 Mile River and the Klondike [Unpublished Memoir] (1983), 24.
[2] Lind, 40 Mile River and the Klondike, 25.
written by Lizann Flatt, illustrated by Ashley Barron
What if animals and plants knew math, just like us? Would flowers bloom in patterns? Would raindrops fall in rhythm? Would birds balance evenly on branches? In this book, nature comes to life to help children grasp concepts of patterning, sorting, data management, and probability.
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Growing patterns: Fibonacci numbers in nature
written by Sarah C. Campbell, illustrated by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell
What’s the biggest mathematical mystery in nature? Fibonacci numbers! The pattern creeps up in the most unexpected places. It’s clear that math holds secrets to nature and that nature holds secret numbers.
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Mysterious patterns: Finding fractals in nature
written by Sarah C. Campbell, illustrated by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell
Nature’s repeating patterns, better known as fractals, are beautiful, universal, and explain much about how things grow. This book is an introduction to fractals through examples that can be seen in parks, rivers, and our very own backyards.
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A-b-a-b-a: A book of pattern play
written by Brian P. Cleary, illustrated by Brian Gable
The pictures and rhyming text in this book provide simple examples of repeating sequences of shapes, colours, objects, and more, helping readers learn how to find patterns in the world around them.
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by Emily Gravett
In Fibonacci’s Field, Lonely and Chalk Rabbit meet, snuggle together, and then spend a year trying to cope with their ever-increasing brood and the seasonal changes that bring a new challenge each month. By the end of the book, you’ll know how 1+1 can add up to 288.
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written by Ann McCallum, illustrated by Gideon Kendall
Rapidly multiplying rabbits are taking over the village of Chee, and soon there are so many that even the Pied Piper cannot get rid of them. A girl named Amanda discovers a pattern that leads to a way to make the rabbits leave.
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written by Joy N. Hulme, illustrated by Carol Schwartz
Count the petals on a flower or the peas in a peapod. The numbers are all part of the Fibonacci sequence. In this book, readers will discover this mysterious code in a special shape called an equiangular spiral, which appears throughout nature. A sundial shell curves to fit the spiral; so does a parrot’s beak, a hawk’s talon, and even our own human teeth.
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The Wing Wing brothers math spectacular!
by Ethan Long
Wilber, Wendell, Willy, Walter, and Woody really know how to put on a show – and their slapstick routine is also a math lesson. They introduce the concepts greater than, less than, and equal to as well as addition and subtraction.
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written by Lizann Flatt, illustrated by Ashley Barron
What if animals and plants knew math, just like you? Would leaves fall in patterns? Would whales enter a race? Nature in the fall comes to life to help children grasp concepts of number sense and numeration.
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Missing math: A number mystery
by Loreen Leedy
What happens when one day, all the numbers in town suddenly disappear? No one can count, use the phone, or find out what time it is. No one can use their computers, money, or rulers. Can the town detective solve the mystery?
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A place for Zero: A math adventure
written by Angelina Sparagna LoPresti, illustrated by Phyllis Hornung
Having nothing to bring to the game of Addemup, Zero cannot play with the rest of the players in Digitaria and so must come up with a clever plan that will let him play despite his numeric shortcomings.
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1+1=5: and other unlikely additions
written by David LaRochelle, illustrated by Brenda Sexton
Is the answer to 1+1 always 2? Not when you add 1 goat + 1 unicorn and get 3 horns, or 1 set of twins and 1 set of triplets and get 5 babies, or 1 ant and 1 spider and get 14 legs!
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Spaghetti and meatballs for all: A mathematical story
written by Marilyn Burns, illustrated by Deborah Tilley
Mr. and Mrs. Comfort have arranged tables and chairs to seat 32 people at their family reunion. But the guests have their own ideas for seating. How will the family make room for everyone?
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written by Becky Birtha, illustrated by Nicole Tadgell
During the Great Depression, Marshall uses the lessons he’s learned in arithmetic class and guidance from his mother to figure out how many beans are in a jar in order to win her a new sewing machine in a contest.
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written by Harriet Ziefert, illustrated by Todd McKie
Increasing numbers of rock-headed characters enjoy a variety of activities, each specific to the number on the page. Four rockheads play in a quartet, five make a basketball team, and nine play on a baseball team.
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written by Trisha Speed Shaskan, illustrated by Francesca Carabelli
What would you be like if you were a fraction? You’d be part of a set. You could be divided more than once. What else would you be if you were a fraction? (Part of the Math fun series)
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written by Lizann Flatt, illustrated by Ashley Barron
What if animals and plants knew math, just like us? Would snowflakes all fall from the same height in the sky? Would otters spread themselves evenly across lakes? Would groundhogs be aware of the date? In this wintry picture book, nature comes to life to help children grasp concepts of time and measurement.
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If you were a pound or a kilogram
written by Marcie Aboff, illustrated by Francesca Carabelli
If you were a pound or a kilogram, you would be the mass of things. You could be a sack of sugar, a basket of berries, or a heavy-duty truck. What else could you be if you were a pound or a kilogram? Part of the Math fun series.
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written by David M. Schwartz, illustrated by Steven Kellogg
Marvelosissimo the Magician is ready to explore length, weight, and volume measurements. How tall is Moonbeam, the unicorn? How long are Jello the cat’s whiskers? Tons and ounces and feet and miles … with millions of things to measure, wouldn’t one standard system be simpler? With another wave of the wand, Marvelosissimo introduces the world of metrics and makes it easy to understand the basic pattern of meters, liters, and grams.
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Zachary Zormer, shape transformer: A math adventure
written by Joanne Reisberg, illustrated by David Hohn
Friday is Zachary Zormer’s favorite day of the week. At least it is until he realizes he forgot this week’s assignment: “Bring in something fun to measure.” What can Zack do when all he has to work with is a piece of paper he finds in his pocket? Week after week Zack takes on a different math concept with surprising projects including a mobius strip, a paper frame large enough to step through, and a light show that demonstrates how the sun heats the earth.
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Magnus Maximus, a marvelous measurer
written by Kathleen T. Pelley, illustrated by S. D. Schindler
Magnus Maximus is a marvelous measurer. He measures wetness and dryness, nearness and farness, and everything in between. When a lion escapes from a traveling circus, Magnus and his trusty measuring tape come to the rescue. Now a hero, all is well until the day Magnus accidentally breaks his glasses, and he sees—for the first time—that he’s been missing out on life’s simple pleasures.
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written by Lizann Flatt, illustrated by Ashley Barron
What if animals and plants knew math, just like us? Would spiders draw pictures in their webs? Would narwhals sort blocks of ice by shape? Would insects know what’s above and what’s below? In this book, nature comes to life to help children grasp concepts of geometry, symmetry, and spatial sense.
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written by Molly Blaisdell, illustrated by Francesca Carabelli
What could you do if you were a quadrilateral? You could have four straight sides. You could be a checkerboard, a kite, or a yoga mat. What else could you be if you were a quadrilateral? Part of the Math fun series.
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What’s your angle, Pythagoras? A math adventure
written by Julie Ellis, illustrated by Phyllis Hornung
Young Pythagoras can’t seem to stay out of trouble. Every time he tries to help, people get angry. What’s a curious kid to do? On a trip to Egypt, Pythagoras’s curiosity helps him discover the secret of the right triangle.
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Sir Cumference and the great knight of Angleland: A math adventure
written by Cindy Neuschwander, illustrated by Wayne Geehan
To earn his knighthood, Radius must find and rescue a missing king. His father, Sir Cumference, and his mother, Lady Di of Ameter, give him a circular medallion (a protractor) that he uses to find his way through a maze of many angles.
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Circles, stars, and squares: Looking for shapes
by Jane Brocket
Through vivid photographs, young readers can explore the difference between flat and solid shapes, and identify objects with these different shapes, including rectangular bricks and cube-shaped candies.
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by Tania Howells
Shapes play supporting roles in the world around us, but which one will be the star of Shapeston Elementary School’s play? Triangle has experience as a traffic sign, and Square moonlights as a postage stamp. Circle has been a lemon slice, Rectangle the cover of a magazine and Diamond a kite, while Oval has played a surfboard. Who gets the big role?
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written by Pam Pollack and Meg Belviso, illustrated by Lynn Adams
Grandpa has a surprise for Tim, Anne, and Gordon – chickens! Now, where should they put the chickens and their new home? Each time they move the fence, the coop becomes a different shape, but the perimeter stays the same. Can they figure it out? Part of the Math matters series.
Many thanks to guest blogger Quinn Monleon for contributing the below post! Quinn is a graduate student at the UBC School of Information and completed a co-op position with Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library this past summer.
As Project Librarian at RBSC during a summer co-op from May to August 2024, I undertook the task of organizing and processing a significant donation from Rick Hurlbut, a former travel agent operating in Vancouver and specializing in LGBTQ+ travel and tourism from the early 1990s to the late 2010s. The donation consisted of 15 loosely organized bankers boxes which contained an assortment of over 3,500 LGBTQ+ travel and tourism-related items including ephemera, artifacts, business correspondence and other records, monographs, serials, and audiovisual resources from the 1970s to the late 2010s.
The Rick Hurlbut LGBTQ+ travel, tourism and hospitality collection offers a unique window into the private circles of LGBTQ+ tourists and travelers and the ways in which they connected with one another before the internet was widely used. At first, I had little knowledge of this specialized travel industry, but the more I examined each item in this collection, I discovered the remarkable level of detail and specificity that characterized this industry. Also, based on the sheer volume of materials collected on locations such as Palm Springs, Fort Lauderdale, Key West, and Puerto Vallarta, it became clear that these were “queer destinations,” at least historically.
I wanted to share some of the materials in the collection that stood out as highlights; these are only a few of the types of materials found in this very diverse collection.
The Rick Hurlbut LGBTQ+ travel, tourism, and hospitality collection showcases the diversity of materials available for research at Rare Books and Special Collections, and adds an important collection for research into the material history of 20th century LGBTQ+ travel.
To access the collection, contact RBSC about making a research visit. You can also learn about other resources related to 2SLGBTQIA+ community and organizations through our 2SLGBTQIA+ History and Archives research guide.
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As a workaround use the new interface link on the Factiva Resource Page – https://resources.library.ubc.ca/page.php?details=factiva&id=543
