By Allan Cho
Community Engagement & Partnerships Librarian
University of British Columbia Library
Introduction
The mission of academic libraries has been to steward literary archives, preserving the manuscripts, correspondence, and records that underpin scholarly research. Yet they have been less visible as spaces where literature is actively created. In this essay, I explore how the University of British Columbia (UBC) Library’s Writer-in-Residence program reimagines the academic library as a collaborative space where community engagement, literary practice, and research intersect. By embedding practicing writers on campus and in the broader community, the program supports emerging voices and positions the library not only as a repository of cultural memory but also as an active site of literary creation.