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
Andrew Downs (1811-1892) created the first Zoological Gardens in North America in Dutch Village in 1847, at the head of the Northwest Arm, expanding it eventually to over 40 hectares (100 acres) in size. He was humble and gentle, a practicing naturalist, who saw Nature as the greatest Temple and set out to share it with the public at large, not as dead, sterile taxidermied mounts, but as a living menagerie, to be experienced by all.
