The Dr. Suren Saxena library is growing steadily, with over 550 books and 3300 articles, reports and audio-visual materials now catalogued. The effort to build the Saxena Library has also led to the addition of some 2,000 volumes on co-operatives and social economy themes to UVic’s McPherson Library. Here are some of the exciting materials we have recently added to our collection:

Civilizing the Economy

DVD. Vancouver: BC Cooperative Association.

Civilizing the Economy asks the question “Is there an alternative to the pervasive power and influence of corporate capitalism as a model for economic and social development?” To answer this question, this two-part video documentary takes us on a journey to Northern Italy and the region of Emilia Romagna where the co-operative model accounts for one-third of the region’s GDP. The 15,000 co-ops in the region cover multiple sectors of the economy, ranging from retail and industrial production to social care and health services. In Part Two, Social Co-ops and Social Care, we visit the community of San Patrignano where the co-op model in inspiring and innovative ways to empower recovering addicts to “begin living again”. The video then explores applications of the social co-op model in the USA and Canada, leaving the viewer with a third option to the public-private care debate we are faced with today.

Cooperative Living in Palestine

Book by Infield, Henrik. 1944. New York: Rural Settlement Institute

While new to our collection, this not-so-new publication explores the origins of the Kibbutz (also Kvutza) movement in the pre-Israel state of Palestine. Written prior to the Second World War and the holocaust, sociologist Henrik Infield takes a systematic approach to writing about the diversity of values and ideals, conflicts and dilemmas of the co-operative settlement movement in which he participated. The ideology of and the issues faced by those founding Kvutzists, are still relevant today. “Economic democracy, racial discrimination, persecution of minorities, to mention only a few of the crucial problems, cannot be circumvented if they are to be solved…Wars provide no permanent solution, for their survivors are faced with the same problems as before, and their solution has not been made easier by the destruction of lives.”

Making Waves:

Canada’s community economic development magazine

Journal. Port Alberni, BC: CCE Publications. Library has vol 12(1) & 2004 to current.

New in the Saxena library is the Spring 2006 edition of Making Waves, a BC-based journal that “discusses the principles and practice of economic development that is expressly geared to rebuild the hope, pride, and power of endangered or deteriorating communities”. The current edition, “CED & the New Economy”, delves into the de-colonizing role of community economic development in Winnipeg’s inner city Aboriginal communities; the difficulties in taking collective action and the need for a values-based dialogue to challenge the dominant values of a global market economy; and the implications of drastic increases in energy costs and the collective action needed to establish the new ways of life and work needed to thrive in the “new economy”.

The Saxena Library is open during regular office hours. The catalogue may be accessed on-line at bcics.uvic.ca/saxena_library. Reference services are available by email, phone or in person. Call ahead to verify hours of library staff. BCICS Office: 250-472-4539