Step Inside B.C.’s Legislative Library: A Hidden Gem Holding Centuries of History

A Hidden Architectural Treasure in Victoria

Tucked past the standard guided tour route of the B.C. Legislature in Victoria, the legislative library houses more than 500,000 physical items and 200,000 digital entries spread across six floors. The facility features architectural elements blending the style of Versailles and historic Oxford reading rooms, including Carrara marble imported from Italy, Honduran mahogany, and scagliola columns.

Today, the library employs about 20 staff members and serves as the province’s primary repository for government publications. Its daily operations still utilize original furnishings, including tables, chairs, and what library director Peter Gourlay believes to be the oldest operating elevator in Victoria, an original Otis birdcage model.

Rare Artifacts and a $500,000 Shakespeare Folio

Secured inside a rare book vault within the director’s office are roughly 1,500 specialized volumes. The collection includes a 1612 Geneva Bible, an inscribed volume by Queen Victoria, and a 1632 Shakespeare Second Folio. According to coverage from the Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News, Kelowna Capital News, Vernon Morning Star, and Penticton Western News, the 1632 Shakespeare Second Folio is valued at $500,000.

The Shakespeare volume is one of approximately 250 remaining worldwide and one of only three known copies in Canada, alongside holdings at the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto. Gourlay noted that the 400-year-old book has no missing pages or major damage. Many of the vault’s Elizabethan-era items were acquired in a single 1930 purchase from an English aristocrat who relocated to B.C. and corresponded with author Rudyard Kipling.

Evolution from Colonial Beginnings to Specialized Research

The library’s origin dates back to 1863, prior to B.C. joining Confederation, when colonial grants funded a single room of unattended books. The collection expanded to 3,000 items under its first appointed librarian, E. Gosnell, and reached 18,000 under successor E.O.S. Scholefield. In 1911, architect Francis Rattenbury designed a dedicated expansion wing. Construction began in 1912, and the $1.2-million extension officially opened on Sept. 15, 1915.

For nearly a century after launching a travelling library program in 1898, the institution shipped book collections to remote communities, lighthouses, and lumber camps across the province. In the 1970s, after provincial archives moved to Belleville Street and public libraries expanded statewide, the institution shifted its mandate specifically to legislative assembly members and staff.

“The big difference is our clientele and what we do,” said Gourlay. “We do more in-depth research than at a public library. We can spend time to really dig into a topic if that’s what our clients are interested in.”

Gourlay emphasized the importance of maintaining B.C.’s governmental records as the institution continues its mandate more than a century after construction finished.