The contents and catalogues of Historical Libraries constitute one of the most valuable cultural deposits of any community. In recent years, there has been considerable attention to the role of technology, but technology is simply the outward and visible sign of the ideas and intentions of individual human beings. It is those signs - those historical tracks - of ideas and intentions which shed light on the work and struggles of our ancestors and earlier peoples, the dreams and visions they had, and the very ordinary ways that they tried to realize those in everyday life.
We have started work on the catalogues of two historical libraries in Halifax:
Halifax Mechanics' Library
Halifax Archbishop's Library
“I have often thought how ridiculous it was that a nation, whose ancestors knew so well the value of liberty as to have maintained it with the last drop of their blood should be instrumental in enslaving a race of people whose only crime, if I judge right, is that the same Being which created them, for reasons beyond the capacity of mortals, made them black instead of white ...” Richard John Uniacke (1753-1830)
