“Yes, this is my album”: Victorian Collections of Scraps, Signatures, and Seaweed is a digital exhibit featuring Victorian era scrapbooks/albums held at the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections and University Archives. Alongside the showcased albums, the exhibit provides a historical overview of the Victorian pastime of collecting things to display inside of books. Drawing from Victorian era manuals, the exhibit focuses on the history and construction of traditional scrapbooks, autograph albums, and seaweed albums. Following each main section, you will find the “From the Archives” pages; here, viewers can browse the full, digitized versions of the exhibit’s featured albums.
For those interested in further research, the exhibit ends with an annotated list of Victorian scrapbooks/albums that are housed at the University of Victoria Libraries Special Collections and University Archives. This list includes the albums featured in this exhibit, as well as others that may be of interest.
The exhibit was curated in 2020/2021 by Elizabeth Bassett.
For more information, please see our About page, email speccoll@uvic.ca, or visit UVic Special Collections and University Archives (located in Room A005, lower level, Mearns Centre – McPherson Library).