Pia Russell is a librarian and historian at the University of Victoria (UVic). Pia holds a BA (UBC & Københavns Universitet), MISt (UofToronto), MEd (OISE/UofT), and MA in Public History (UVic); she is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of History at UVic. Pia has worked in libraries and the GLAM sector for over twenty years and while she enjoys maintaining healthy, meaningful collections and leading a large, community engaged research project, the absolute best part of her work day is meeting individually with students. Please book an appointment with Pia during her office hours; her research consultation will save you heaps of searching time.
Pia can be found in Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA), the Department of History, and the Faculty of Education. Pia is UVic’s Education Librarian, a frequent course instructor, and also the Curator of the British Columbia Historical Textbooks project. Read Pia’s published work and learn about her educational and employment experiences on her ORCiD profile. You can also understand more about her research with the history of children’s books, the history of British Columbia, and the superimposition of settler colonialism in North America between 1492 and 1899 on her scholarly profile at the Department of History website. She often observes history through the lens of class consciousness, feminism, decolonization, and anti-racism. The history of children and childhood features large in her work; learn more about this by watching a 20-minute presentation she gave to the Children’s History Society conference in Newcastle, UK, in July 2024. Pia is particularly drawn to the evidence children leave in their own hands such as book marginalia.
