Since 1916 the Vancouver Institute (VI) has sponsored regular lectures of general public interest, and in so doing has fostered a liaison between "town-and-gown". Held weekly during the spring and fall academic terms these free public lectures were initially presented at the Assembly Hall located on UBC's original Fairview campus. In 1929 the lectures moved to the University's Point Grey campus where they have become a popular Saturday night fixture. Operating on a modest budget supported by membership fees the Institute has presented an eclectic range of topics presented by notable local, national and international speakers.

In 1975 the VI began recording the lectures and the resulting audio and videotapes have been preserved in the University Archives. To help promote greater access to these valuable presentations the UBC Library, in partnership with the Institute, has begun digitizing and providing online access to these lectures. While the content of some of the tapes may now be a little dated, we felt it important to include as many as possible to both convey a sense of the state-of-the-art information at a particular time as well as to provide an overview of the scope of the lecture topics.

For information about the early history of the Vancouver Institute see Eric Damer's 1995 MA thesis entitled, Town and gown: the early history of the Vancouver Institute.

For a complete listing of the current lectures and additional information, The Vancouver Institute's additional information see https://globalreportingcentre.org/vancouver-institute/

As of Fall 2020, these lectures are delivered via Zoom, a cloud-based video conferencing service.