Hours: Monday to Friday, 11:00am-5:00pm.
Location: 5th Floor, Killam Memorial Library; 6225 University Avenue PO Box 15000
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 4R2
Contact: (902) 494-3615; archives@dal.ca; see Archives staff page for additional contact information
Access: Open to the Public; Requests for access to archival materials must be made by 4:00 p.m., Monday-Friday. Advanced notice is required for accessing audiovisual material and digital archives. Researchers engaged in extended research may also place materials on reserve. There are various reproduction service forms that are also available to researchers: Archives Document Delivery Request Form (for Dalhousie students, faculty, and staff), Instructions for Archives Document Delivery Request Form, Reproduction Services and Fee Schedule and Standard Reproduction Request Form.
Website: https://libraries.dal.ca/find/university-archives.html
Dalhousie University Archives houses University archives and collections of private papers, government, organizations, labour unions and medical societies from Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada. Dalhousie University’s collections are focused in thematic areas including citizen action groups, environment and sustainability, historical maps, labour archives, medical archives, Maritime history archives and women’s archives.
Dalhousie’s University Archives include collections from the Faculty of Medicine (1863-1992, bulk 1950s-1970s, 30m of textual records). Dalhousie Medical School is the only medical school in the Maritime Provinces, linked to the provincial healthcare systems in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. Incorporated in 1941, the Maritime School of Social Work (1922-2001) was an independent school but amalgamated with Dalhousie in 1961. The collections contain 65m of textual material. Faculty of Dentistry (1908- ) and Faculty of Nursing (1946- ) are located within private faculty papers and faculty of medicine collections. The Dalhousie College of Pharmacy (1884-2010), also known as the Maritime College of Pharmacy in 1917, became affiliated with the Prince Edward Island Pharmaceutical Association in 1950 and in 1961, was incorporated into Dalhousie University, Faculty of Health Professions as the Dalhousie College of Pharmacy (102.5cm of textual and graphic material and 48 photographs). Also included are the collections of the Dalhousie Nursing Alumni Association (1973-1979). On November 9, 1915, Dalhousie University also mobilized a research hospital, the No.7 “Overseas” Stationary Hospital, which sailed from St. John, New Brunswick on December 13, 1915 to England.
Private papers of faculty include the collections of biochemist Eldrid Gordon Young (1940-1950), with material on chemical warfare. Dentist George Kerr Thomson (1921-1933) was an important figure in the establishment of the Maritime Dental College and was the Dean of the Faculty of Dentistry in 1924. Other important collections include physician Harold L. Scammell’s (1937-1951), sociologist and psychologist Alexander H. Leighton (1937-1951), who wrote five reports known as the Stirling County Study, one of the first post-war explorations of mental illness in a general population, Chester Stewart (1932-1995), professor of Epidemiology at Dalhousie University who worked on aviation medicine and decompression sickness, biochemist J. Gordin Kaplan (1866-1952), professor of chemistry and mineralogy George Lawson (1854-1895), cardiologist G. David Douglas (1966), first Director of the College of Pharmacy J. Gordon Duff (1844-2010; predominant 1961-1990) and professor of Psychiatry Robert O. Jones (1955-1986).
Dalhousie University Archives also houses collections of women’s organizations, labour organizations, medical hospitals and dispensaries in Halifax, Nova Scotia. For example, The Halifax Visiting Dispensary (HVD) (1882-1966) was established in 1856 to provide free or subsidized medical services to those in need. It was financed by private donations, endowment funds, city grants from Halifax and Dartmouth and the community chest. In 1924, the HVD moved into the Dalhousie University Public Health Clinic (DUPHC). Other notable collections include the Nova Scotia Council of Health (1966-1973), the Nova Scotia Family and Child Welfare Association (1969), Canadian Pharmaceutical Association (1917-1971), Nova Scotia Pharmaceutical Society (NSPS) (1895-2007) and the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada (1963-1989). The Nova Scotia Women’s Action Committee (1974-1982), founded in Halifax in 1975, was established for the purposes of promoting full and equal participation of women in all aspects of Nova Scotia society. The Movement for Citizens Voice and Action (1968-1982), a coalition of community groups in Halifax-Dartmouth, was established in 1971.
There are various digital collections under Dalhousie’s Digital Archives and Special Collections including Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science, founded in 1862 from the Halifax Mechanics’ Institute (1831–1860) and the Halifax Literary and Scientific Society (1839–1862). Archives Collections in DalSpace contains The Ecology Action Centre (EAC) collections, a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based environmental activism organization founded in 1971. Our Voices Matter Oral History Collection is a project of the Canadian Mental Health Association Halifax-Dartmouth Branch. The collection consists of 16 DVDs, 5 CD-ROMs, and 54.4 GB of digital video and electronic transcriptions.