Out of curiosity, we had a look through our old newsletters and found a reference to when the CCLA purchased its first computer. Apparently it was early February 1987 when we picked up a SPERRY HT, and were quite excited about it:

I remember growing up in the 80s with computers the size of desks and printers twice as big; the one the CCLA bought was a little smaller as you can see in the picture below, but it definitely brings back memories!

I really love looking at old photos of Ottawa, and was especially excited to find this great shot when I was looking for pictures of Somerset House. Our current courthouse is located on at 161 Elgin Street, so most of us are probably quite familiar with the Elgin / Laurier intersection. But behold!

This picture, from around 1948, shows Elgin Street looking north, back when it was considered to be a ceremonial boulevard leading up to the war memorial. The area that looks like a big black circle towards the bottom of the picture? That’s Laurier and Elgin, and *that’s* a traffic circle! The northwest corner is the Lord Elgin hotel, and the southwest is the First Baptist Church, both of which still stand today. The other side of the street is a different story altogether – those buildings in the northeast corner of the intersection were torn down to make way for Confederation Park, and of course we’re now sitting in the courthouse in the southeast corner.

We get quite Olympic-obsessed at the CCLA Library, so there’s no better time to throw it back to the last (and only) time Canada hosted the Summer Olympics, which some of you might remember: Montreal in 1976. Our local connection to the Montreal Olympics of course is the Honourable Justice Fraser, who competed for Canada in Track & Field.

You can see more photos from Montreal 1976 on the Canadian Olympic website here.