Premiere: New Acquisitions at Library and Archives Canada

This new exhibition which opened on Tuesday evening is well worth the detour if you're in the vicinity of Library and Archives Canada at 395 Wellington Street in Ottawa.

The eclectic collection of items new to LAC include a design for a never-produced prototype of the ill-fated Avro Arrow airplane, and a book printed in Quebec from the 1700s dealing with a mysterious (at the time) illness now thought to have been a form of syphilis with suggestions for treatment.

There's a manuscript of a play by writer Jane Urquhart when she was a child, a student of Dora Mavor Moore, and one of the oldest books in the collection making its first public appearance: Mivachar Ha-Peninim (Choice of Pearls) by Solomon Ibn Gabirol, published in 1484 appropriately advising that treasures are to be shared.

And much more.

The free exhibition, expected to run until December, is in the salon at the end of the corridor to the right as you enter the building (it's good to see LAC taking back more of the ground floor space).

Thanks to Dino Roberge of LAC Communications for providing a better copy of the image than I was able to get at the event.