Tracey Tong/metro ottawa
Ottawa Room librarian Brian Silcoff checks out a volume in the rare books collection recently.
For someone who’s only lived in Ottawa for six months, I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the city I’ve come to love.
I’ve been to most big institutions. If I don’t know where a street is, I’ll at least have a gist of where I am. I know the history of things like the canal and the politics that shaped the city.
But next to Brian Silcoff, most of us would look positively naïve.
While he doesn’t consider himself to be a foremost expert on Ottawa history, Silcoff — the librarian for the Ottawa Room at the downtown Ottawa Public Library — certainly holds the key to that knowledge.
A historian’s dream and arguably the city’s best kept research-resource secret, the Ottawa Room gets the usual suspects — students, of course, who come in search of information on subjects from transportation to history to law to environmental studies. And before them, their professors, who tap the room’s materials to design the assignments.
But there are also people in the arts who visit the room for its collection of plays and poetry by Ottawa authors, and reporters and researchers who scour history books for special projects.
“We also get documentary filmmakers who want information so they can get an accurate portrayal of Ottawa,” said Silcoff. “It’s incredible, who comes in here.”
One of the main reasons the Ottawa Room draws so many people is the growing interest in family history and family trees, which attracts people from across Canada.
“We make a very concerted effort to collect records that are produced by organizations like genealogical societies or church parishes. We make it easy for people interested in personal genealogy to locate information about their ancestors,” he said.
The Ottawa Room also has a collection of maps, city documents and bylaw information, which is something else many people request, said Silcoff.
While we’re chatting, a woman comes in, looking for information on former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. Silcoff takes her information and promises her he’ll dig up all the sources he can.
Knowing about the history of your city allows you to derive more satisfaction out of living there, he said.
“I’ve learned a lot since coming here,” he said. “When I came to Ottawa, I picked up the casual stuff that new arrivals would pick up. In my first year at this job, I learned more than I had in the last 30 years.”
Metro Ottawa’s Tracey Tong is an award-winning reporter. A Burlington native, Tong’s career has taken her all over Ontario. Her Cityscapes column appears every Wednesday.
