Historical photographs

Interested in Burnaby's Past? 

Were you ever curious to see a picture of the railroad station on Barnett? Did you know that Miss Harriet Woodward ran a private school at Deer Lake in 1904? Perhaps you wondered about the farms at Oakalla? The Burnaby Public Library Bob Prittie Metrotown Branch has three photograph collections which will interest you. These three collections, the Burnaby Public Library Historical Photograph Collection, the Burnaby Public Library Contemportary Visual  Archive Project and the Burnaby Heritage Resource Inventory: Metrotown are located in the Metrotown branch. There are photocopies of  photos from the latter two collections available in the reference department but library cards are required to view the original photos.

The Burnaby Public Library Historical Photograph Collection  (R971.133 Bur) is a small but important collection of 190 photographs of Burnaby people, places, and events, donated primarily by the Burnaby Historical Society. The photographs cover a broad time period beginning with an 1865 picture of Robert Burnaby and ending with a picture of BCIT taken in the 1960s. The collection has been entered into an  in- house database and can be searched by subject, decade or planning area.  In some cases the library can have copies made for you. The library also has a Local History Slide Collection of  two carousels of slides, originally from the Burnaby Historical Society, which are available for borrowing and may be used for public viewing. 

The photographs of the barns at Oakalla are an example of the many photographs in the library's Burnaby Public Library Contemporary Visual Archive Project (R971.133 Bur). This project, initiated by the library in 1976, was done in conjunction with Simon Fraser University Communication students. Its aim was to present a contemporary view of Burnaby at that time in photographs. There are 500 photos which are accessible by name of street, park, business or general subject heading. 

Finally, if you live in the Metrotown area , you might be interested in seeing the originals of the photographs of heritage buildings and homes that were used for the book Burnaby Heritage Resource Inventory: Metrotown (R971.133 Bur). The Burnaby Historical Society compiled this inventory of homes, buildings and structures that date from the late 1890's to the early 1900's.