On Friday, April 24th, acclaimed Japanese author Kanako Nishi sat down with translator Allison Markin Powell and UBC Asian Studies professor Christina Laffin for a conversation about her recently translated novel, Sakura. Originally published in Japanese in 2005, Sakura (さくら) is the first of Kanako Nishi’s novels to be translated and published in English. Sakura […]
Local newspapers show what life was like at the time. They report on everyday events and issues, showing what people cared about. Ads and editorials reveal social values, the economy, and popular trends. They also reflect the opinions and biases of the people who wrote and read them, while showing how communities changed over time.
The Punjabi Patrika, published in Abbotsford, BC, is one of its kind. It has been one of North America’s leading Punjabi-English newspapers for nearly two decades, serving both the Punjabi community and English-speaking readers interested in Punjabi culture and news. The newspaper offers a unique perspective on South Asian communities in British Columbia. It began in October 1996 and continues to the present. UBC’s Open Collections provides a digitized version covering the years 1996 to 2014.
Below is a selection of content you can expect to find in the Punjabi Patrika. So diverse!
Here’s a look at some international news coverage:
Newspapers like this provide a window through which we can explore the social conditions of immigrants, as seen in the stories of early Sikh pioneers.
From Punjabi Patrika, Volume 1, Number 1, 1996, the article “Recapitulating Our Pioneers” highlights the lives of early Sikh pioneers, emphasizing their struggles, resilience, and lasting contributions to community development.
More immigrant experiences through a Youth Column …
From Punjabi Patrika, Volume 1, Number 10, 1997, a Youth Column article highlighting a young Filipino student’s perspectives and experiences in Canada, praising its quality of life, opportunities, and multicultural society while acknowledging some social and economic challenges.
You will also find some meaningful life lessons …
From Punjabi Patrika, Volume 2, Number 10, 1998, featuring an article on the significance of forgiveness and its role in fostering inner peace, healing, and reconciliation.
You will also find resources for community members.
From Punjabi Patrika, Volume 5, Number 12, 2001, featuring an article on a B.C. program supporting foreign-trained professionals. It highlights the integration barriers faced by immigrants.
I started my work as the Digital Repository Research Assistant at the cIRcle Office last September as I entered my third year of my MAS/MLIS program. Through my graduate coursework and professional positions, I had experience with digital asset creation and metadata processing; I also understood many of the conceptual frameworks of open access and digital preservation. Working at the cIRcle office solidified what I had previously learned, enhanced my understanding of digital preservation and open access exponentially, broadened my skill sets, and allowed me to build entirely new competencies. The hands-on, day-to-day work that I undertook at cIRcle, in addition to the training and support that I received from my colleagues, has ultimately made me a more competent and thoughtful information professional.
Submissions, Metadata, and Copyright
A primary responsibility in this position was to provide support for cIRcle’s mediated deposit service through the creation of records in DSpace. This deposit process involved preparing files for submission by converting files to appropriate formats, renaming files to align with cIRcle File Naming Conventions, and creating metadata per cIRcle’s metadata standards. The digital records I created at cIRcle were of a wide variety, ranging significantly in format and content. Some submissions easily followed established patterns and standards, while others were more complex, requiring further research and unique decisions. Once a submission was complete, I also notified faculty members, students, and staff that their work was now available openly in cIRcle.
Another aspect of my submission work consisted of publisher policy review to help identify and process items eligible for cIRcle. This included contributions to a pilot content recruitment initiative in collaboration with the Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal (DTES RAP), which brings together reports, articles, and other resources about Vancouver’s DTES. I reviewed the self-archiving permissions of identified UBC faculty-authored research articles that are published in paywalled journals and of relevance to the DTES community, to determine if they could legally be made openly available. I used JISC Open Policy Finder to get a sense of initial direction, and sifted through publisher websites to find and review their self-archiving policies, allowing me to establish what was permitted for deposit to an institutional repository.
I also contributed to metadata remediation efforts during my time at cIRcle. This process involved editing and changing metadata for previously identified items to bring them up to date with the current best practices at the cIRcle Office and in the broader library field. This included a data population and reconciliation project for a subset of identified graduate theses and dissertations, as well as an oral history project. The recommended changes identified across these projects will ensure that the metadata accurately reflects the items’ content and improves their aggregation in Open Collections. It will also increase the discoverability of these items through improved searchability, making said items more open and accessible to all users.
Communications: Blog Posts
Another significant aspect of my work at cIRcle was contributing content to the cIRcle blog. This included highlighting existing worksavailable in cIRcle and discussing their implications, impacts, and alignment with cIRcle’s mission. I also wrote blog posts that demonstrated the work cIRcle does—such as a file naming conventions blog post that accompanied the larger project—and how significant this work is to UBC Library and the overall UBC community. This included a blog post addressing the effects of file formats on accessibility, which can serve as a resource to help potential submitters understand how they can prepare their files in a way that creates accessible and long lasting digital resources.
Final takeaways
The work I have undertaken at cIRcle, in addition to the guidance and support I received from my colleagues, has been a formative experience in my continuing journey as an information professional. I’m extremely grateful to have had the opportunity to support cIRcle’s mission of promoting UBC’s intellectual output in a free and open way, encouraging teaching, learning, and research, and preserving materials for current and upcoming generations. Through my work here, I was able to contribute to creating a better internet through open access and digital preservation, and I hope to continue doing so in the future.
On Friday, April 10, the Department of Asian Studies and the Asian Library at the University of British Columbia hosted their 15th annual Harjit Kaur Sidhu Memorial Program, an event dedicated to celebrating the life of Harjit Kaur Sidhu. Harjit Kaur Sidhu was a passionate educator and advocate for Punjabi language and culture, and recognizing […]
Have you heard of Sandon, a historic former silver mining town, now known as a ghost town? If you’re traveling through the Kootenay region these days, it’s definitely one of the most popular heritage tourism sites to visit.
As you set out on a scenic wilderness drive, winding along a rugged and twisting road, you’ll eventually come upon this quiet, desolate place. Nestled high in the Selkirk Mountain Range, Sandon sits in a narrow valley built right over Carpenter Creek. Once a thriving community, the town was home to more than 5,000 people at its peak, with countless stores and businesses lining its streets.
Sandon, once known as the “Heart of the Silvery Slocan,” was founded in 1891 as a fast-growing but unplanned mining boomtown in the Carpenter Creek valley. Initially, settlers built freely without formal governance until J. M. Harris staked a legal townsite in 1892 and became a dominant figure in its development. The town was incorporated in 1898. Around this time, in the mid-to-late 1890s, residents had begun developing basic services such as a fire department, a school, and hydroelectric power, along with infrastructure like flumes, boardwalks, and civic buildings to improve sanitation and organize the growing community.
Behind this prosperity, however, was the harsh reality of miners’ lives. In the 1890s, miners in Sandon worked under dangerous conditions for low and often uncertain wages, facing frequent injury, illness, and isolation. The arrival of experienced American miners brought strong labour activism, leading to the formation of the Sandon Miners’ Union in 1898 under the Western Federation of Miners. The union fought for better wages, safer working conditions, improved living standards, and an eight-hour workday. Tensions with mine owners escalated into strikes and lockouts, bringing widespread hardship to the miners. The conflict eventually led to a compromise: miners secured an eight-hour workday but had to accept reduced wages, leaving many issues unresolved.
Despite its early success, Sandon faced major setbacks in the years that followed. In addition to prolonged labour disputes, the town was hit by a devastating fire in 1900, declining silver prices, and a population decline. These factors contributed to economic collapse, and by 1913 the town had fallen into receivership. Like many interior boomtowns, Sandon’s prosperity was short-lived. It was eventually abandoned in 1955 after the silver ran out, and a flash flood later destroyed much of what remained.
The Japanese Internment History in Sandon
Sandon’s story is about more than its mining past; it is also deeply connected to the history of Japanese internment in Canada. In 1941, nearly 22,000 Japanese Canadians were stripped of their rights, property, and possessions, and labeled “enemy aliens” following the Imperial Japanese Navy’s surprise attack on the US naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Of these, approximately 12,000 were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in camps across the interior of British Columbia, including Sandon. The camp in Sandon housed about 953 internees and was designated as a Buddhist community, as the wartime BC Security Commission segregated internees by religion. Sandon was chosen because of its many abandoned buildings and existing infrastructure.
Internees carried out essential labor such as repairing infrastructure, renovating buildings, and supporting wartime efforts. Despite minimal supervision due to the town’s remote location, they largely governed themselves, maintaining order and managing the camp’s daily operations. Though conditions were harsh, isolated, and winters severe (earning Sandon the nickname “Camp Hell-Hole”), the internees established a functioning community with schools, religious spaces, and cultural activities. For the first time since the town’s economic decline, Sandon was once again bustling with hundreds of residents. The camp eventually closed due to extreme weather, and most internees were relocated to nearby New Denver.
Today, as you walk through Sandon, you’ll see some restored buildings and abandoned homes – relics of its past, that tell the story of a once-booming town. You can visit the Silversmith Power & Light Generating Station, which is still in operation today, and explore a unique collection of Brill buses, featuring various models from cities such as Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Regina. The Sandon Historical Society Museums, located in the beautifully restored Slocan Mercantile Block in Sandon, are still in operation and welcome visitors from around the world.
In celebration of Japanese author 西加奈子 Kanako Nishi’s upcoming book talk at the UBC Asian Centre on April 24th, the Asian Library presents a display featuring a selection of her works from our collection. This display spans over two decades of writing and artistic work, featuring 32 works of fiction, nonfiction, children’s storybooks, and more. […]
The Chung | Lind Gallery is pleased to announce that gallery drop-in tours are now offered every Wednesday at 1:30 p.m. PDT. Led by Rare Books and Special Collections and the University Archives archivists, tours can take up to 60 minutes and begin in the Gallery foyer. Located on Level 2 of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, the Gallery is free and open to the public.
Join us for a guided experience through exhibits from the Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection and the Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection, two exceptional UBC Library collections. Featuring hundreds of objects on display, the Gallery houses Klondike Gold Rush maps, letters and photographs, alongside rare documents and artifacts related to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, early British Columbia history and the immigration and settlement of Chinese people in North America.
“I’m really excited about the upcoming tours as they’re an opportunity to connect with visitors over the unique narratives the Chung | Lind Gallery showcases regarding British Columbia’s complex and diverse past,” says Nataliya Radke, Archivist at University Archives. “Whether visitors join me for a guided deep-dive into stories of the Gold Rush and early immigration or prefer to explore at their own pace, it’s a privilege to share this work with others and discover how these early journeys continue to shape our collective identity in British Columbia today.”
Drop-in tours offer visitors a chance to explore the histories represented in these collections, ask questions, and consider the ongoing relationship between past perspectives and life today.
“Growing up in Vancouver, I’ve always been curious about local history and understanding how the place I call home came to be – a curiosity that led me to study early British Columbia history and begin a career as an archivist,” says Laura Moberg, Archivist at Rare Books and Special Collections. “The Chung | Lind Gallery offers a unique window into Pacific Northwest history by weaving together broader themes of transnational migration, economic development, and settler-colonial expansion, with stories of how everyday people navigated life during these tumultuous times. I encourage everyone to come by the gallery to learn more about these complex histories, and perhaps consider their legacies in our own lives today.”
Interested in booking a tour for your class or large group? Contact us to schedule an appointment by phone (604-822-3053) or email (rare.books@ubc.ca).
