Victoria, BC—The University of Victoria Library will receive a 2,500 volume personal library as a BC Centennial gift from a noted Icelandic expert and his wife.

Dr. Richard Beck and Mrs. Beck of Victoria will present their library of Icelandic and Scandinavian books to the university in memory of their pioneer parents.

In a statement to D. W. Halliwell, University Librarian, Dr. Beck said, It is our hope that the presentation of this collection will contribute to future teaching and study in the field of Scandinavian languages and literatures at the University of Victoria, a field which is already receiving due attention in a number of Canadian universities.

The library, representing one of the largest personal collections of its kind in North America, will come to the university over a number of years. It consists of volumes covering classical Old Icelandic literature, 19th-century prose and poetry, and cultural and general histories of Iceland. Scandinavian authors and history books are included.

Mr. Halliwell said the gift will give the university one of the leading university collections of Icelandic literature in North America. Up to this point, the University of Manitoba had the only substantive university collection in this field in Canada.

Dr. and Mrs. Beck will present a token volume to the University of Victoria in a ceremony at 3:00 p.m. Thursday, December 16, 1971 in their home, 28 Marlborough Street, Victoria.

Dr. Beck spent thirty-eight years at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota as a professor of Scandinavian Languages and Literature. Mrs. Beck taught in San Francisco high schools for twenty-five years. Born in Victoria, Mrs. Beck was the daughter of Einar and Sigridur Brandson who settled in Victoria in 1887. Dr. Beck’s parents were Hans Kjartan and Thorunn Vigfusina Beck of Reydarfjordur, Iceland. Dr. Beck and his mother came to Canada in 1921 following his father’s death.