The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.2000, Page 10

Vol. 55 #4
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
308
of the the Great War, but instruction was taken up again in 1916 by Professor Skuli Johnson on a
voluntary basis in addition to his duties as a Professor of Latin and, from 1920 as Dean of Arts. After
1927, when he transferred to the staff of the University itself, both he and Rev. Marteinsson were
regularly appointed as examiners in University-level Icelandic but enrollment seems to have ceased
in the early 1930s. Instruction continued at the high school level at the Jon Bjarnason Academy until
it closed in 1940.
These actions at the turn of the last century laid the first courses of one of the two pillars which
were ultimately to represent the Icelandic Presence at The University of Manitoba. But further
building on that pillar stopped in 1937 for almost a quarter century. Meanwhile, a start was made
on the second pillar, the Icelandic Collection in the Libraries of the University.
The Icelandic Collection
In May of 1936, the first course of the second pillar was laid through the donation to the
University of the library of A. B. Olson comprising some 1,300 volumes. Subsequent expansion of
the collection was provided through many contributions, large and small, from members of the
Icelandic-Canadian and Icelandic-American communities and from Iceland itself. Two major con-
tributions were the library of the Jon Bjarnason Academy (which was transferred upon that acade-
my's closing in 1940) and, in 1951,
the library of Reverend Einar
Sturlaugsson of Patreksfjord,
Iceland (some 4000 papers and
periodicals dating back as far as
1796).
But as President Saunderson
wrote in 1961,7 "the future of the
collection has been assured since
1939 when the Icelandic
Parliament passed an act by whose
terms The University of Manitoba
Library may receive, free, one
Johann Gestur Johannsson copy of every book and paper pub-
lished in Iceland. The first ship-
ment from an Icelandic printer was received in 1940."8 Since then private donations have continued
to provide the collection with valuable additions to those acquisitions which the Libraries provide
annually through the University budget. While the status of the University's Libraries has been
altered by subsequent legislative changes in Iceland, the Icelandic Collection continues to benefit