A collaboration between the University of New Brunswick [UNB] Libraries and Gaspereau Press, the New Brunswick Bibliography Series aspires to encourage and support New Brunswick studies by focusing attention on our province’s published heritage, as well as on materials about New Brunswick, or by New Brunswick authors, published elsewhere.
New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province in Canada. It stands to reason then that New Brunswick bibliography, to be complete, will contain works in both official languages, English and French. While this is so, the New Brunswick Bibliography Series is conceived as a venture that will focus mainly on English-language publications and book history, while considering works in other languages as opportunities arise. This orientation recognizes the fact that bibliographic control of French-language New Brunswickana is already well in-hand as a result of the work of the Université de Moncton’s Bibliothèque Champlain and Centre d’etudes acadiennes Anselme-Chiasson.
The "series model" for tackling New Brunswick bibliography was advanced at a New Brunswick Bibliography Symposium hosted by UNB Libraries on March 22, 2018. The idea was met with enthusiasm and the series has now been officially launched, with the publication of a prospectus in March 2019. The series will provide tools for professional and lay scholars who, using them, will create new knowledge about the land and society in which we live – new knowledge that can help us make sense of our world; understand one another better across cultures; understand ourselves in relation to the rest of the world; and develop solutions to seemingly intractable social, political and cultural problems.
The news that Gaspereau Press was partnering with UNB Libraries to publish the NewBrunswick Bibliography Series generated a lot of interest that has lent momentum to the project. Already several bibliographic projects are in the works and a publication schedule is being developed. Volume one, a bibliography of New Brunswick bibliographies, to be supplemented by the keynotes from the first two symposia, is to appear in Fall 2019. Other research projects that have already been undertaken will eventually lead to the publication of bibliographies on architecture, the history of religion in New Brunswick, New Brunswick imprints 1821-1900, the Nancy Bauer Collection of New Brunswick books, the Fiddlehead Poetry Books, and the history and culture of the Indigenous peoples living in this region, to name a few.
The series aims to encompass not only “lists of books” on diverse topics of social, political and cultural importance to New Brunswick, but also volumes dedicated to all aspects of books and book history. There would be value in capturing the history of New Brunswick printers and publishers, booksellers and collectors, either in introductions to works of enumerative bibliography or as standalone titles in the series. In fact, any subject that attaches itself to the creation of books, the reading and enjoyment of them, and the collecting of them, in libraries both public and private, may be considered suitable, as long as the focus is New Brunswick, since bibliography and book history are complementary endeavours.
New Brunswick has a long history by New World standards, and one that has had a significant impact on the development of the region, the rest of Canada, and parts of the United States. And, despite our demographic and geographical challenges—we are a small population, composed of diverse cultures and thinly distributed over a large territory—we persist, and continue to make valuable contributions to the human enterprise. The series is meant to shine a light on this record of achievement. At the same time, it will no doubt surface aspects of our more troubled past. But knowing our future, both good and bad, is key to moving forward into the future on a better footing.
Part of a larger project, the New Brunswick Bibliography Series will eventually be accompanied by an online searchable database which will be comprehensive in its coverage of published materials with a New Brunswick connection. The database will have an advantage over the print series in that it can contain more and be continually updated. As an open access resource, it will allow us to disseminate our research results to regional, national and international audiences.
The following slate of names attached to the series, along with their affiliations, demonstrates the depth of support the New Brunswickana Project has been able to muster.
NEW BRUNSWICK BIBLIOGRAPHY SERIES
Honorary Editors
- Gwendolyn Davies, Professor Emerita, University of New Brunswick
- Peter F. McNally, Professor Emeritus, McGill University
Editor
- Jocelyne Thompson, University of New Brunswick
Editorial Board
- Jennifer Andrews, University of New Brunswick
- Francesca Holyoke, University of New Brunswick
- James MacKenzie, University of New Brunswick
- Hon. Graydon Nicholas, St. Thomas University
- Joanne Smyth, University of New Brunswick
- Andrew Steeves, Publisher, Gaspereau Press
- Donald Wright, University of New Brunswick
Advisory Board
- Lesley Balcom, UNB Libraries
- Marc Bragdon, UNB Libraries
- Marthe Brideau, Université de Moncton
- Anita Cannon, Mount Allison University
- David Creelman, University of New Brunswick
- Fred Farrell, Provincial Archives of New Brunswick
- Susan Fisher, UNB Libraries
- Keith Grant, Crandall University
- Amy Heans, New Brunswick Public Libraries
- John Leroux, Beaverbrook Art Gallery
- Donald McAlpine, New Brunswick Museum
- Andrew Steeves, Gaspereau Press
- Tony Tremblay, St. Thomas University