Showing 4085 results

Frieze and Roy were shipping merchants from Maitland, Nova Scotia. David Frieze started the company in 1839, when he ran a general store as well as owning and operating sailing vessels. Adam Roy joined Frieze in business in the 1860s and they became Frieze and Roy in 1868. In addition to running his business, Adam Roy served as a justice of the peace and was associated with the Maitland School. Frieze and Roy both had connections to the Maitland Presbyterian Church and the Sons of Temperance chapter. Alexander Roy, Adam Roy's brother, built many of their ships, while Adam Roy's brother Thomas Roy, along with members of the MacDougall and Douglas families, served as captains. Their vessels included the well-known Barque Snow Queen (1876-88), the Esther Roy, the Linwood and the Brig Trust. With the decline in the shipping industry during the 1880s, they switched their focus to their general store, which sold a wide range of goods such as hardware, lumber, candy, groceries, kitchenware, fabric, shoes and toys. David Frieze's son George was also involved with the business.

Roy's son, Adam Frederic (Fred) Roy, took over the business when he was 19, and his daughter, Margaret Sanford, in turn inherited it. The 1970s saw a decline in business due to the building of a bridge that linked Maitland closer to Truro. In 2004 Glenn Martin purchased the store from the Sanfords to preserve it, with the agreement that he would maintain store's long history. The Frieze and Roy General Store still operates in Maitland, primarily selling giftware and souvenirs. It remains one of the oldest businesses in Nova Scotia.

Sheila Piercy was an opera singer, voice teacher and philanthropist, who supported aspiring artists and the performing arts in Nova Scotia and across Canada. Born on 18 November 1933 to Lilian MacKinnon and Reginald Piercy, she began singing at a young age under the tutelage of her mother. She attended Halifax Ladies College and toured with a ballet company and skating show before studying at Dalhousie University from 1951-1954, where she was active in sports and the Dalhousie Glee and Dramatic Society and King’s College Dramatic and Choral Society.

After studying voice in Halifax under Leonard Mayoh, she moved to Toronto in 1956 to take up a scholarship at the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto opera program. Mentored by Ernesto Vinci, she began life as a professional soprano with the Canadian Opera Company (COC) in 1958, where she stayed for the next 13 years. In addition to her work with the COC, Sheila Piercy performed regularly on the CBC and at the Banff Centre, Stratford Festival, Rainbow Stage and Charlottetown Festival. After retiring from the COC in 1971, she moved back to Nova Scotia, and from 1977 -1982 she taught voice at Dalhousie University. She was a key supporter of Dalhousie's Performing Arts Campaign, and her gift of $1.5 million honoured some of her mentors through the naming of the Ernesto Vinci Studio and Leonard and Doris Mayoh Studio. A third studio, the Sheila K. Piercey Rehearsal Studio, provides a rehearsal space for students. She died on 20 May 2019.

Don Murchy is a community activist, volunteer, and a prominent member of Nova Scotia’s leather community. Murchy was born in Dartmouth on August 18, 1950. He graduated from Dartmouth High in 1968 and moved to Truro, where he attained his associate’s degree in Education from the Nova Scotia Teachers College. Following this, Murchy moved to Fort Kent, Maine, where he was awarded both a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Education.

Upon moving back to Halifax in 1976, Murchy worked various jobs, including teaching computer classes and working in local health clubs. From 1988 to his retirement in 2015, he worked at Saint Mary’s University in the Registrar’s and Admissions Offices and taught computer classes through their Continuing Education program. Murchy has been a member of the Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union [NSGEU], holding several positions on the local and regional boards. He met his current partner in 1986.

Murchy’s participation in the LGBT Community began upon his return to Nova Scotia through his attendance at The Turret, an LGBT bar operated by the Gay Alliance for Equality (later the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Nova Scotia) located in the Kyber building. Upon The Turret’s closure in 1982, Murchy attended events at its successor, Rumours. Murchy joined the TightRope Leather Brotherhood at its inception in the early 1990s and would go on to hold every executive position prior to the Brotherhood going defunct in 2007. He was the first winner of the Mr. Atlantic Canada Leather [M.A.C. Leather] contest in 1999. From 1993 until 2006, Murchy ran the Over Thirties Club for gay men, which held potlucks in private homes across the Maritimes, maintaining a mailing list of approximately 150 people. Murchy produced the Fetish Ball from 2004-2014 as a fundraiser for local LGBT causes, and also developed the Fetish Evening, which held events from 2007-2009. He has worked for the Halifax Pride Committee as a Waterfront Supervisor and has previously held Toys for Boys talks at Venus Envy during Pride week. Murchy has also been a member of the Society of Bastet, a BDSM and kink play club in Halifax, and was an associate member of Chicago Hellfire and Delta International men’s BDSM clubs in the United States.

Jane Murphy was a professor and pioneering psychiatric epidemiologist who, from 1975 until her death in 2021, led the Stirling County Study, initiated in 1948 by her late husband Alexander Leighton. She was born on 9 October 1929 in Denver, Colorado, received a BA from Phillips University in 1951 and a PhD from Cornell University in 1960. In 1951 she joined the Stirling County Study as an administrator and researcher, followed by graduate studies in anthropology and sociology at Cornell University. During her PhD research, she lived with indigenous peoples in Alaska to learn about their concept of mental illness, and carried out cross-cultural studies in Nigeria and Vietnam.

In 1966 she married Alexander H. Leighton and together they continued and extended the seminal Stirling County Study in psychiatric epidemiology, the longest running study of its kind to understand the prevalence and types of mental illness across generations in a cross-cultural community. She served as the Senior Social Scientist for the Study and was in charge of its extension during the late 1960s and early 1970s. After Dr. Leighton's retirement from the Harvard School of Public Health in 1975, Jane Murphy became the director and designed the study so that on reaching the 40-year mark, it would be possible to trace historical trends regarding the prevalence of different types of mental illnesses. Murphy served as director of the study from 1975 until her death in 2021. She taught in the psychiatric epidemiology program at the Harvard Chan School from 1996-201; directed the Psychiatric Epidemiology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital; was a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; and served as an adjunct professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University.

Widely published, Jane Murphy made contributions to the literature on cross-cultural psychiatry, the prevalence of depression in communities, and continuities in community-based psychiatric epidemiology. She served on the Executive Committee of a section of the World Psychiatric Association and on the Council of the Association for Clinical and Psychosocial Research. She was a recipient of a Rema Lapouse Award from the American Public Health Association and the Harvard Award in Psychiatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics.

Jane Murphy and Alexander Leighton enjoyed a long association with Digby County, Nova Scotia, and helped make local history more available to the public through the Wilson Collier Committee, which focuses on identifying, preserving and connecting historical writings and photographs of the Bay of Fundy as well as the stories and lives of the people who live there.

William Young was a Nova Scotia businessman, lawyer and politician. He was born in 1799 in Falkirk, Scotland, to John Young and Agnes Renny. In 1814 he moved with his family to Nova Scotia, where he helped to establish John Young and Company, a wholesale dry goods business. He acted as his father’s agent in Halifax and New York. In 1815 he formed a partnership with James Cogswell to operate an auction and commission business that lasted until 1820.

Young began an apprenticeship in 1820 with the Halifax law firm of Charles Rufus and Samuel Prescott Fairbanks. The relationship ended in 1823 when Young was accused of sharing Fairbanks' campaign information with his father during John Young's failed bid against Charles Fairbanks in a Halifax by-election. In 1824 he managed his father’s successful campaign in a Sydney by-election. He became an attorney in 1825 and a barrister in 1826. In 1834 he and his brother, George, established an insurance business that lasted into the 1850s. He married Anne Tobin in 1830.

In 1832 Young won his first seat in the provincial assembly. The election results were invalidated because of interference from his brother, George. In the election of 1836 he ran and won in Inverness County, a seat he held for twenty years. Young was active in the assembly, working with reformers and supporting responsible government. He was a member of a delegation to Quebec City for constitutional discussions with Lord Durham in 1828 and served as speaker of the assembly for many years and as attorney general from 1854–1857. In 1859 he ran and won in Cumberland County and served briefly as premier before being appointed chief justice, a position he held until his retirement in 1881.

Young was actively involved in many aspects of Halifax society. He donated books and money to the Citizen’s Free Library. He was instrumental in negotiating the land lease for Point Pleasant Park, contributed financially to Dalhousie College and served as chairman of the college’s Board of Governors for 36 years (1848-1884). William Young died in Halifax on 8 May 1887.

Chebucto Community Net is Eastern Canada's oldest running independent Internet Service Provider, which continues to run as a non-profit, community-run ISP dedicated to providing public access to the tools of communication. Originally called the Chebucto FreeNet, and operating on a Sparc 2 loaned by Dalhousie University, it began operating as a text-based host in late October 1993; on 16 June 1994, the name was changed to Chebucto Community Net (CCN).

On 7 June 2013 CNN completed the first phase of its Manors Project, a plan to provide high-speed wireless Internet access to public-run, low-income seniors housing. Joseph Howe Manor and H.P. MacKeen Manor were the first examples of non-profit home high-speed Internet access in Eastern Canada and the first multi-dwelling residences in the Maritimes with full wifi access.

In addition to its wireless service, CCN provides affordable dialup Internet access and supports free, text-based terminal Internet access. It provides low-cost or free communication tools and a home for the websites of dozens of community groups, information resources, neighbourhood organizations and small businesses.

Chebucto Community Net is run entirely by volunteers, including a volunteer board of directors, with the support of community partners including Dalhousie University Department of Mathematics and Statistics; Dalhousie Computing and Information Services; Halifax Regional Library; Nova Scotia Department of Technology & Science Secretariat; Human Resources and Development Canada; and Industry Canada.

Mary Vingoe is a Canadian playwright, actor and theatre director. Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she graduated from Dalhousie University and received the University Medal in Theatre in 1976. She completed her MA in Drama at the University of Toronto in 1977 and lived in Toronto for 13 years before returning to Nova Scotia. She was the founding Artistic Director of the Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Ottawa, and a co-founder of the Toronto feminist theatre company Nightwood Theatre, Ship's Company Theatre in Parrsboro, Nova Scotia, and Eastern Front Theatre in Halifax.

Vingoe has directed at major theatres across the country and has acted and written for stage, radio, television and film. She has been closely associated with the work of many Canadian playwrights, in particular Wendy Lill, for whom she has directed five world premieres, four of which were nominated for Governor General’s awards. She has received the Mayor’s Award for Achievement in Theatre, the Portia White Prize, and the Robert E. Merritt Award for Achievement in Theatre. In 2011 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Peter Sanger is a Nova Scotia poet and literary critic who taught at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC) from 1972-1998. Born in 1943 in Bewdley, England, he immigrated to Canada in 1953. He received his BA in history from the University of Melbourne, MA in history from the University of Victoria, and BEd from Acadia University. He taught in Ontario, British Columbia and Newfoundland before joining the Humanities Department at NSAC, teaching English literature, technical writing, and agricultural and scientific history, retiring as the head of the department and professor emeritus. In 2012 he received an honorary doctorate from Dalhousie University.

Sanger’s literary career includes poetry, essays and biographies. His first published book, The America Reel (Pottersfield Press, 1983), was followed by early poetry collections Earth Moth (Gooselane Editions, 1991), The Third Hand (Anchorage Press, 1994), and After Monteverdi (Harrier Editions, 1997). His most recent collection is Odysseus Asleep: Uncollected Sequences, 1994-2019 (Gaspereau Press, 2019). He was a long-serving poetry editor for The Antigonish Review and was instrumental in establishing and developing the Agricola Archival Collection.

Solar Audio & Recording Limited was a recording studio founded by Russ Brannon in 1975. The studio operated on Wyse Road in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia and then on Hunter Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The company recorded hundreds of musicians and musical groups and, in the 1990s, moved into post audio for film and television productions. Solar Audio was not a record label, but many artists who self-released records that recorded and mixed at the studio used the studio’s name.

In 1986, Solar Audio & Recording Limited was sued by Sound Images, Incorporated, a recording studio based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sound Images purchased a sound console from Solar Audio and sued the company in the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia when the console could not be installed as planned. Associate Chief Justice Ian H. M. Palmeter dismissed the charges after concluding that "something happened to the console after the time it was shipped by Solar to Cincinnati."

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) was founded in 1936 by Lothar Richter and Dalhousie University through a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in recognition of the need for greater regional economic and social development. It began as an experimental organization, intended to make connections between Dalhousie University and the community and the social sciences and public policy. The IPA’s primary areas of activity were government, business, labour and community, with a focus on public administration.

Guy Henson was appointed director in 1957 with a mandate to reorganize the IPA. Under his guidance, the institute broadened its socio-economic research programs, including the Africville Relocation Project and significant work in labour-management relations.

In 1977 Kell Antoft succeeded Henson and in 1980 the institute moved into its own building, the Henson Centre, named after its former director. In 1984 the Henson Centre, the IPA and the Office of Part Time Studies of Extension were amalgamated to create the Henson College of Public Affairs and Continuing Education. University funding for Henson College was discontinued in 1993, which led to a decline in its activities. In 2004 the Henson College of Public Affairs and Continuing Education was folded into a new faculty named the College of Continuing Education (CCE), which was later named the Faculty of Open Learning and Career Development.

The Institute of Public Affairs maintained its own library, with holdings of more than 18,000 items, which covered topics such as economic development, local government, industrial relations, management development and labour organization. Beginning in 1984 the institute's library was gradually integrated into Dalhousie University Libraries.

Engineering professor H.R. Theakston worked at Dalhousie University for 45 years, beginning in 1918 and stopped by his death on 26 August 1963. He was born in Monkton, Vermont, in 1895 to Henry Theakston and Ella Sponagle. They moved to Nova Scotia during his childhood and he was educated at Sydney Academy and at Dalhousie, where he completed an engineering course in 1915. After serving in World War One, he returned to Halifax to complete a two-year engineering diploma at the Nova Scotia Technical College, graduating with the Governor General's Award. In 1921 he was appointed assistant professor of engineering and Engineer in Charge of Building and Grounds at Dalhousie. Promoted to full professor in 1929, he became head of the engineering department in 1949, and in 1951 was named the first Clarence Decatur Howe Professor of Engineering. He was granted an honorary doctorate from the Nova Scotia Technical College in 1954.

Dr. Theakston played an integral role in the physical development of Dalhousie's Studley Campus. He was an active member of the Engineering Institute of Canada, the Association of Professional Engineers of Nova Scotia, the American Society for Engineering Education and the Canadian Standards Association. He also served on the Senates of the Nova Scotia Technical College and Dalhousie University. His contributions to Dalhousie are marked by the Dr. H.R. Theakston Memorial Award, presented each year to the student who achieves the highest standing in Engineering Graphics and, more substantially, by the Sexton Campus building named after him.

Peter Busby Waite was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1922, to Cyril and Mary (Craig) Waite. He graduated from high school in 1937 while living in Saint John, New Brunswick. Peter received both his B. A. (1948) and M. A. (1950) in History from the University of British Columbia followed by completion of his Ph.D at the University of Toronto in 1954. Peter married Masha Gropuzzo in 1958. He has two daughters: Alica Nina and Anya Mary. He married Lorraine (Conrad) Hurtig in 2005.

Peter Waite worked at the Dominion Bank from 1937 to 1941. In 1941 he joined the Royal Canadian Navy, attaining the rank of lieutenant by the close of World War II, in 1945. Peter Waite started his teaching career as a lecturer, at Dalhousie University, in 1951. He was hired as an assistant professor in 1955, promoted to an associate professor in 1960, and gained full professorship in 1961. He headed the Dept. of History for nine years, from 1960 to 1968. Upon his retirement in 1988, he gained the title of Professor Emeritus of History, Dalhousie University. He has had numerous appointments as guest lecturer at other institutions. Peter B. Waite received honourary degrees from The University of New Brunswick, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, and Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Peter B. Waite has written 14 books and numerous articles for academic journals. He authored the two volumes of the “The Lives of Dalhousie University”, covering the period 1818 to 1980, published in 1994 and 1998.

Peter Waite is active in the historical community, both on a national and local level. He has been a member of: The Canadian Historical Association and was President, 1968-1969; Chairman of the MacDonald Prize Committee, 1976-1980; Humanities Research Council and was Chairman, 1968-1970; Historical Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, 1968-1977; National Archives Appraisal Board, 1979-1989; Chairman of the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, Social Sciences Federation of Canada, 1987-1989; Board of Trustees for the Pubic Archives of Nova Scotia, 1972-1999; the Chalmers Prize Committee, Ontario History, 1987-2005; and the City of Halifax, Advisory Committee on the Preservation of Historic Buildings. Peter Waite is an Officer of the Order of Canada, appointed on October 21, 1992; a Fellow, Royal Society of Canada, elected in 1972; and a Fellow, Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society since 2002. Peter was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2013.

Marq de Villiers is a veteran Canadian journalist and author of books on exploration, social and natural history, politics and travel. The son of Rene and Moira de Villiers, he was born in 1940 in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and was educated at the University of Cape Town and the London School of Economics. Between 1962-1968 he worked as a reporter for the Toronto Telegram, an editor for Reuters, London, and a senior feature writer at The Cape Times. He was the Moscow correspondent for Toronto Telegram, and resident bureau chief for Look and Venture magazines, reporting from most parts of the Soviet Union and East Europe between 1969-1971. After moving back to Canada, he worked as a freelance magazine writer and contributing editor at Weekend Magazine, Montreal, then spent fourteen years with Toronto Life magazine in consecutive roles of executive editor, editor and publisher. From 1994-1994 he was the editorial director of WHERE Magazines International in Los Angeles.

His books include White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid's Bitter Roots As Witnessed by Eight Generations of an Afrikaner Family (1989), which won the inaugural Alan Paton Award; The Heartbreak Grape: A Journey in Search of the Perfect Pinot Noir, which was shortlisted for Governor General, Julia Child and James Beard awards; and Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource (1999), for which he received the Governor General Award. With his wife, Sheila Hirtle, he co-authored Blood Traitors (1997); Into Africa: A Journey through the Ancient Empires (1997); Sahara: A Natural History (2002); and Sable Island: The Strange Origins and Curious History of a Dune Adrift in the Atlantic (2004), winner of the Evelyn Richardson Memorial Literary Prize for Non-fiction. They also co-wrote Timbuktu: Africa’s Fabled City of Gold (2007). Witch in the Wind: The True Story of the Legendary Bluenose (2007) also won the Evelyn Richard prize, along with the Dartmouth Book Award for Non-fiction. This was followed by a series of books about the environment: Dangerous World: Natural Calamities, Manmade Catastrophes and the Future of Human Survival (2008); Our Way Out: First Principles for a Post-Apocalyptic World (2011); and Back to the Well: Rethinking the Future of Water (2016), which was shortlisted for the Donner Prize for Best Public Policy Book by a Canadian, as well as the Evelyn Richardson Prize. His most recent title is Hell and Damnation: A Sinner’s Guide to Eternal Torment (2019).

In addition to his own books, he has ghost-written several autobiographies and was the scriptwriter and on-screen narrator for Water Water, a three-hour miniseries adaptation of his book Water, broadcast on the Discovery Channel.

In 2010, Marq de Villiers was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada for his contributions to social and political discourse. He holds an honorary degree with Dalhousie University and lives in Eagle Head on Nova Scotia’s south shore.

René Marquard de Villiers was a journalist, author, historian, newspaper and magazine editor, as well as a liberal parliamentarian and activist in the Republic of South Africa. He was born in Winburg, Orange Free State in 1910, the same year that the Union was established. On his mother’s side, he was related to Leo Marquard, one of the important political figures of the time. On his father’s side, he was related to the de Villiers clan, which traces its roots in South Africa back to the 17th century.

He was educated at Grey College and then at Grey University College in Bloemfontein, where he studied law. After graduating, he was offered a job at the office of the Judge President of Orange Free State, but turned instead to journalism and took a job as a cub reporter at The Friend, one of the Argus newspapers, in January 1930. He then served on the staff of The Farmer’s Weekly for one year. Between 1934 and 1935, he went to England to study international relations at the prestigious London School of Economics. After returning to Africa, he resumed his job at The Friend and became its News Editor in 1939. In 1944, he joined the staff of The Forum, a weekly news review founded by J. H. Hofmeyer, and was appointed Editor three years later. In 1949 he left The Forum to join the editorial team of The Star, the main English-language daily in Johannesburg. He returned to serve as Editor of The Friend in December of that same year.

In October 1957, he accepted the position of Senior Assistant Editor of The Daily News based in Durban. A little over three years later (January 1961), he was appointed Editor. He was appointed Senior Assistant Editor of The Star in January 1962, serving under J. W. Patten. Upon Patten’s retirement, de Villiers assumed the editorship of the paper and remained in that capacity until his retirement in 1970. From 1972 to 1973, however, de Villiers served a brief term as Editor of Optima. He was also responsible for editing the second volume of Better than They Knew, a multi-authored scholarly work on the contributions of English-speakers to South Africa. As well, he contributed to the Oxford History of South Africa.

In April 1974, after being urged by friends, de Villiers came out of retirement and sought election as a member of the South African Parliament, Cape Town. He won his seat as a Progressive Party candidate in the district of Parktown, and became the party’s press and media critic, as well as the spokesman on domestic affairs. In May 1975, he was instrumental in the merging of the Progressive and Reform parties. This resulted in the creation of the Progressive Reform Party, which later became the official opposition. In 1977, after only a single term, de Villiers retired from politics.

Throughout his professional life, de Villiers was active as a member of the South African Institute of Race Relations, which was dedicated to the goal of fighting racial discrimination and prejudice in South Africa. He served as editor of the Race Relations News, the Institute’s official periodical. After retirement from Parliament, he served as Regional Chairman of the Institute’s Cape Western district (1977-1979). In January 1980, he was elected President of the Institute for a two-year term.

De Villiers was a passionate advocate for freedom of the press, and throughout his life he spoke frequently on the need for the press to be unhindered by governments or individuals. He defended the press from attacks by national politicians who believed that reporters and editors were unduly influenced by political or other such interests. In June 1955 he testified before an official commission on the press in South Africa on this issue.

In April 1978 de Villiers was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, and he later accepted a Fellowship from Trent University in Peterborough, ON.

De Villiers was married to Grace Moira Franklin in December 1937. The couple had two children: a daughter, Inez Dorothy, and a son, Marq Antoine. He died in 1992.

Lindwood Holdings Limited was an investment and holding company incorporated in 1971. The company was formed when Oland and Son Limited sold its brewing assets to John Labatt Limited. After this sale, Oland and Son Limited became Lindwood Holdings Limited, Olands Brewery Limited became Lindwood Holdings (N.B.) Limited and Oland and Son (Que) Limited became Lindwood Investments (Que) Limited. Lindwood Holdings retained the non-brewing assets of Oland and Son and its affiliated companies, including farm land, property and real estate, contracts, and other investments.

At the company's inception, Bruce Oland was President of the company, Don J. Oland was Senior Vice- President, Sidney M. Oland was Vice-President and Assistant Secretary-Treasurer and Norman Stanbury was Secretary-Treasurer. Oland Investments Limited owned a 56% stake of the company's shares. Changes to the company's executive occurred throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.

Lindwood Holdings made investments in a wide variety of sectors, including manufacturing, real estate, natural resources, and transportation. The company owned a minority share of Tartan Seafoods and numerous other regional and national businesses. As President of Lindwood Holdings, and later as Chairman of the company's Board of Directors, Bruce Oland remained active in the brewing industry. He regularly consulted with John Labatt Limited and served on the Advisory Board of Oland's Breweries (1971) Limited, the company established by John Labatt Limited to run the brewery in Halifax. In the 1980s, Lindwood Holdings sold many of its assets and became less active in the investment business. Lindwood Holdings was dissolved and its name struck from the Register on June 10, 2010.

W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library at Dalhousie University holds the University Libraries' biomedical collections and provides services to the faculties of Medicine, Dentistry, and Health Professions, as well as to health professionals throughout the Maritime provinces.

In 1864 Dr. Charles Cogswell donated his personal medical library to the Medical Society of Nova Scotia, envisioning its use as a resource for future medical students and practitioners. The Cogswell Collection made up the greater part of the Cogswell Memorial Library, which was housed in the City Hospital before being moved to the Halifax Medical College around 1875. After the Medical College closed in 1910 and re-opened at Dalhousie College as the Faculty of Medicine, the Cogswell library moved to the Forrest Building. The original collection is now housed in Special Collections.

In 1937, the Medical Dental Library was built to accommodate the growing collection of the medical college and the newly formed Faculty of Dentistry. Thirty years later, in 1967 the W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library opened in the recently built Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building. It was named for philanthropist and entrepreneur William Keith Kellogg in recognition of his $420,000 donation earmarked for library resources. In 1986 the Kellogg Library, formerly administered by the Faculty of Medicine, became part of the Dalhousie University Libraries system.

Between December 2015 and January 2017 the Kellogg Library was temporarily relocated in Chapter House while renovations were completed in the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building. In January 2016 a health sciences learning commons was created in the newly constructed Collaborative Health Education Building (CHEB).