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Compiled by Jeff Green

The CNS holds the province’s only complete copy of Stonepics, a set of 165 CDs giving the personal and family names and the dates from tens of thousands of gravestones across the province. The set cost $7,000 and was donated by the Langevin family of Grand Falls.

The CNS book stacks are temperature and humidity controlled. As well, there is an oxygen-suppressant gas system in place to remove oxygen from the stacks should a fire ever occur.

One of the crowning achievements of Agnes O’Dea (1911-1993), founder of the CNS, was the publication of Bibliography of Newfoundland in 1986. It is a two-volume set that describes 5,000 books on Newfoundland that were published before 1975.

Agnes O’Dea received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Memorial in 1987. Ms. O’Dea died on Jan. 26, 1993, after a lengthy illness.

The stained glass in the CNS was donated by Agnes O’Dea’s brothers John and Fabian O’Dea in her memory. Entitled The Voyage, the piece was designed and executed by Graham Howcroft.

Anne Hart, Ms. O’Dea’s successor as head of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies and current honorary research librarian at Memorial, received an Order of Canada in 2005 for her work with the centre and her research and writing.

The CNS holds an actual copy of William Cormack’s map used to trek across Newfoundland in 1822.

The CNS holds the only copy in Canada ­ and one of only about 17 or 18 copies in the world ­ of Robert Hayman’s 1628 book Quodlibets.

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