The Significance of Housing the Sidney P. Albert Bernard Shaw Collection at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto
by Professor Brian Corman (Past Vice-Provost, Graduate Research and Education, and Dean of the School of Graduate Studies, and Professor Emeritus of English, University of Toronto)
It is with great pleasure that I can let you know that the important Sidney P. Albert George Bernard Shaw Collection has found a permanent home at the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library. A bit of background: As many of you know, the University of Toronto is Canada’s premier university. Perhaps less well-known is that our Library ranks third in holdings in North America, behind Harvard and a distant second Yale. In the past fifty years, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library has expanded its holdings to become a major research centre. It is strong in British literature, with a number of special collections in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But Shaw was not among its greatest strengths. So when Kay Li told me about the Albert Collection, I joined her in believing it was a great match for the Fisher’s Collections. And it now is, though it will take some time to catalogue the many pallets of material that are now in the Library.
A number of people deserve credit and our thanks for making this happen. First and foremost, of course, is the Albert family; they chose the University of Toronto, and scholars will be grateful for many, many years. On the University’s side, our Chief Librarian, Larry Alford, and the Head of the Fisher Library, Loryl Macdonald, saw the importance of the Albert Collection for our Library. Two other key players are familiar to the International Shaw Society, Kay Li and Leonard Conolly. Their familiarity with the Collection and its importance—more about that in a moment—were essential. I am delighted to be able to make this announcement, though my own role was minimal. To exaggerate it a bit, I would liken it to what my late colleague, Robertson Davies—who taught a graduate seminar on Shaw for many years here—called fifth business. I hope that many of you will have the opportunity to further your research projects at the Fisher Library now that we have the outstanding Albert Collection.
