1967 Fredericton Convocation
Lamb, William Kaye
Doctor of Laws (LL.D.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
Image
Image Caption
L to R: Colin B. Mackay, Sir Max Aitken, William Kaye Lamb
Second Image Caption
Source: UA PC-5 no.9(39); Photo by Joe Stone
Citation:
CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1967
WILLIAM KAYE LAMB
to be Doctor of Laws
As the U.B.C. Graduate Chronicle wrote in 1948, "He might have been a sea captain, or an economist, or a play-wright. His interests are wide enough . . . But perhaps a whopping (sic) big mark in Honours History settled his career for him." To-day, as Dominion Archivist and head of the National Library in Ottawa, he has borne out the
prophecy of U.B.C.'s then president (our own past president) that as a librarian he looked impossible to replace. Dr. MacKenzie was about to inaugurate his university library's new wing -- added thanks to his irreplaceable librarian's urging.
Dr. Lamb was under no illusions about his new task. Canada in 1948 was the only civilized country in the world without a national library. The disgrace was lessened in that all the material on Canada was in Canada, but scattered across its 3,000 miles, most of it in collections. Frank Underhill, the historian, lamented that to secure full copies of the old Toronto Globe one had to pursue them through five major libraries and the Public Archives -- and still not get a complete file.
The challenge was not so much physically to centralize the paper as to make its whereabouts known. And so, under Lamb's tireless hand, has grown the great Union Catalogue. It has become a catalogue of catalogues of 272 Canadian libraries, including the big ones, and embracing those of the Library of Congress, the British Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale -- 7 million entries and the key to 10 million.
Our worthiest centennial achievement, the National Library is, of course, a master library in its own right. "Ours", says Lamb, "is a million-book library". When to this million are added the collections of forty-four Government Departments (to whom Lamb has appeared as a Scavenging Angel) it approximates to two million.
Born as a gleam in Sir John A. MacDonald's eye, it has struggled through a century of hazards from fire, financial freezing, two wars, and a morass of political apathy. Its functional exterior encloses 13 acres of floor space and 21 miles of shelving, shrewdly designed on the Meccano principle for redeployment at need; and it is graced by its inspirer's darling, "the nicest stairway in the country". Its Telex chatters daily to 40 libraries across the land, including our own, at whose opening yesterday the National Librarian most auspiciously and, I need not add, most willingly consented to assist.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
WILLIAM KAYE LAMB
to be Doctor of Laws
As the U.B.C. Graduate Chronicle wrote in 1948, "He might have been a sea captain, or an economist, or a play-wright. His interests are wide enough . . . But perhaps a whopping (sic) big mark in Honours History settled his career for him." To-day, as Dominion Archivist and head of the National Library in Ottawa, he has borne out the
prophecy of U.B.C.'s then president (our own past president) that as a librarian he looked impossible to replace. Dr. MacKenzie was about to inaugurate his university library's new wing -- added thanks to his irreplaceable librarian's urging.
Dr. Lamb was under no illusions about his new task. Canada in 1948 was the only civilized country in the world without a national library. The disgrace was lessened in that all the material on Canada was in Canada, but scattered across its 3,000 miles, most of it in collections. Frank Underhill, the historian, lamented that to secure full copies of the old Toronto Globe one had to pursue them through five major libraries and the Public Archives -- and still not get a complete file.
The challenge was not so much physically to centralize the paper as to make its whereabouts known. And so, under Lamb's tireless hand, has grown the great Union Catalogue. It has become a catalogue of catalogues of 272 Canadian libraries, including the big ones, and embracing those of the Library of Congress, the British Museum and the Bibliothèque Nationale -- 7 million entries and the key to 10 million.
Our worthiest centennial achievement, the National Library is, of course, a master library in its own right. "Ours", says Lamb, "is a million-book library". When to this million are added the collections of forty-four Government Departments (to whom Lamb has appeared as a Scavenging Angel) it approximates to two million.
Born as a gleam in Sir John A. MacDonald's eye, it has struggled through a century of hazards from fire, financial freezing, two wars, and a morass of political apathy. Its functional exterior encloses 13 acres of floor space and 21 miles of shelving, shrewdly designed on the Meccano principle for redeployment at need; and it is graced by its inspirer's darling, "the nicest stairway in the country". Its Telex chatters daily to 40 libraries across the land, including our own, at whose opening yesterday the National Librarian most auspiciously and, I need not add, most willingly consented to assist.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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