Xwi7xwa (pronounced whei-wha) Library, which sits adjacent to the Longhouse, began in the 1970s with the founding of the Indian Education Resource Centre, whose collection later came under the care of the Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP).
When the First Nations House of Learning opened the Longhouse and the Kekuli House, which was built to house the library, in May of 1993, NITEP transferred the collection to Xwi7xwa Library.
FIND: Xwi7xwa Library on Google Maps
Xwi7xwa Library, now a branch of the UBC Library, is jointly administered with Main Library.
Its collection consists of approximately 12,000 items, including about 6,000 books, 450 videos, 5,000 vertical file materials, curriculum resources, journals and newspapers, maps, posters, theses and dissertations, the G.A. (Bud) Mintz special collection, and some archival materials.
The collections focus on First Nations in British Columbia, but also include contextual materials about Indigenous Peoples in Canada as a whole.
In addition to special collections, the library has research librarians knowledgeable in Indigenous subject areas, and is an international leader in Indigenous classification research.
Reference librarians are available to help access Xwi7xwa Library’s resources and anyone with a UBC Library card may borrow materials.
Unaffiliated with UBC? If so, UBC Library offers an Aboriginal Borrowing Card, available to any self-identified Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) person in Canada.