Robert Morris Hamilton BA portrait. Credit Old McGill yearbook 1934.

b. 25 March 1912, Lachine, QC; d. 8 June 2010, Richmond, BC

1934 BA McGill University
1935 BLS McGill University
1936–1937 Columbia University Carnegie Fellowship

1935–1936 Assistant McGill University Law Library
1937–1943 Assistant, Library of Parliament, Ottawa
1944–1946 Reference Librarian, New York Public Library
1946–1961 Assistant Librarian (English), Library of Parliament
1961–1964 Associate Professor School of Librarianship, University of British Columbia
1964–1971 Assistant University Librarian for Collections, UBC

Hamilton, Robert (1938). “Quebec government publications to 1841.” Ontario Library Review 22 (2): 82–84.
Hamilton, Robert (1944). “A National War Memorial Library.” Ontario Library Review 28 (1): 3–4.
Hamilton, Robert (1948). “The Newspaper Microfilming Project.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 4 (4): 89–93.
Hamilton, Robert (1951). “The Microfilming of Newspapers.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 8 (3): 91–94.
Hamilton, Robert (1952). “The Library of Parliament fire.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 9 (3): 73–77.
Hamilton, Robert (1952 and 1965). Canadian Quotations and Phrases: Literary and Historical. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.
Hamilton, Robert (1955). “Reference Section [CLA section chair].” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 11 (6): 318–319.
Hamilton, Robert and Rita Butterfield (1957, 1959, 1962). Canadian Book Prices Current. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.
Hamilton, Robert (1959). “The domestic trade in general Canadiana.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 15 (4): 147–148.
Hamilton, Robert (1961). “The year ahead [1961–1962].” Canadian Library 18 (2): 52–53.
Hamilton, Robert (1962). “A for Action.” In Proceedings of the Canadian Library Association 17th annual conference, Ottawa, June 22–29, 1962, pp. 18–26 [presidential address].
Hamilton, Robert (1967). Orchid Flower Index: A World List of Reproductions in Color in Books and Periodicals 1736 to 1966, vol. 1. Richmond, B.C: [s.n.] [volume 2 published in 1979].
Hamilton, Robert and Dorothy Shields (1979). The Dictionary of Canadian Quotations and Phrases [rev. and enl. edition, 1982]. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.

President, Canadian Library Association, 1961–1962
Institute of Professional Librarians of Ontario
Bibliographical Society of Canada
British Columbia Library Association
American Orchid Society

Canadian Centennial Medal, 1967
Named a Life Member of the Vancouver Orchid Society in 1983

“I guess we never really gave up entirely on the thought that a library school was not partially a vocational school you know and that the personality and adaptiveness and all the rest of it were good things to have.” — Bert Hamilton quoted in Forty Years of Library Education; The School of Library, Archival & Information Studies, University of British Columbia, 1961–2001.

Canadian Who’s Who, 1961–1963
Vancouver Sun, June 19, 2010, p. J4 [obituary]
ELA biography compiled by Lorne Bruce