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Tuesday, August 07, 2012

PUBLIC LIBRARY BOARDS IN POSTWAR ONTARIO by Lorne and Karen Bruce

Karen and I have just reissued a revised edition of our older Public Library Boards in Postwar Ontario, 1945-1985. It was originally published in 1988 as an occasional paper by the University of Dalhousie School of Library and Information Science. Long out of print. But now its back in print again with updated information for the original text and references plus a new chapter to continue the story from 1985 to just before 2010. Most of the original text has been retained.

Contemporary library boards in Ontario are mostly administrative entities, but this was not always the case. Local government today is very different from the pre-1945 era. Over the years, accountability has trumped representation (a political concept) in local government and provincial statutes controlling local agencies. The municipal government has overtaken many local bodies--clearly, elected local officials in larger government entities created after the 1960s in restructuring exercises now hold powerful positions in relation to other community agencies. But councils are by no means absolute. Local representative agencies, such as Ontario library boards, still possess interesting positions in local decision making and continue to exist through separate provincial legislation (for public libraries dating to 1882) and retain some influence over services.

The transformative period for Ontario library boards was no doubt framed by the remarkable growth and development of local government after 1945. By 1985, with the enactment of new library legislation, the issue of accountability for non-elective library boards was mostly resolved. Since that time, trustees and boards have accepted  new roles and power relationships alongside municipal councils. But the original sense of community representation still remains a strong element in thinking about library operations and administration.

You can read this new edition at the following link at the Internet Archive. The contents and paging for the new version of Public Library Boards is as follows:

1. Introduction
2. Library Boards Prior to 1945
3. Political Representation and Responsibility
4. Influence, Power and Authority of Local Boards
5. Intergovernmental Planning for Public Libraries
6. Professionalism in Library Administration
7.Trusteeship, the Internet, and the Digital Library
8.Conclusion
Tables

If you are interested in having a copy, you can request a copy for $15.00 by emailing lbruce@uoguelph.ca.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

PLACES TO GROW; PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND COMMUNITIES IN ONTARIO, 1930-2000 by Lorne Bruce (revised 2020)

A follow up from my previous history of public library growth in Ontario, Free Books for All: the Public Library Movement in Ontario, 1850-1930. I have recently updated Places in 2020 with additional materials--references, tables, images, and a revised index. You can read the updated version of  Places to Grow at the following link at the Internet Archive or a preview edition on Google Books. Most of the revisions and additions relate to issues and developments after 1985.

Places to Grow covers the history of the development of Ontario's public library system from the Great Depression to the Millennium. It describes the growth of larger systems of service, plans in the 1950s and 1960s for a provincial library system centred in Toronto, the professional growth of librarianship, library architecture, the decline of censorship and growth of intellectual freedom, the inexorable progress of library automation, the rise of electronic-virtual-digital libraries,  the impact of the Information Highway in the nineties, and many other issues. Chapters include:


1. Introduction                           
2. Depression and Survival                   
» Broader Perspectives: Libraries in Canada
» The Public Libraries Branch and the OLA
» Modern Methods
» Local Libraries in the Great Slump
» County Library Associations
» School Curriculum Revision and the Public Library
» The Libraries Recover
3. War and the Home Front                   
» Military Libraries and American Allies
» Wartime Services and Planning
» The Spirit of Reconstruction
» Peacetime Prospects
4. Postwar Renewal, 1945-55
» The Library in the Community                  
» Revised Regulations and Legislation
» Postwar Progress and the Massey Commission
» Intellectual Freedom and the Right to Read
» The Hope Commission Report, 1950
» New Media and Services
» Setting Provincial Priorities
5. Provincial Library Planning, 1955-66           
» Library Leadership and Professionalism
» Book Selection and Censorship
» The Wallace Report, 1957
» The Provincial Library Service and Shaw Report
» The Sixties: Cultural and Societal Change
» Towards the St. John Survey and Bill 155
6. “Many Voices, Many Solutions, Many Opinions,” 1967-75                   
» The Centennial Spirit
» Reorganizing Local Government
» Schools and Libraries
» Regional and Local Roles
» Reaching New Publics and Partners
» The Learning Society and Cultural Affairs
» The Bowron Report
7. Review and Reorganization, 1975-85           
» “Canadian Libraries in Their Changing Environment”
» “Entering the 80’s”
» The Programme Review
» A Foundation for the Future
» The Public Libraries Act, 1984
8. The Road Ahead: Libraries 2000               
» New Directions and Consolidation
» Legal Obligations
» One Place to Look: A Strategic Plan for the Nineties
» The Information Highway
 » Savings and Restructuring, the Megacity, and Bill 109
» The Millennium Arrives

Originally posted and updated on 15 April 2021 by

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

THE CASE FOR A NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA, 1933–1946

In the midst of the Great Depression a Carnegie funded project to study Canadian libraries appeared. In a hundred and fifty pages this report, authored by John Ridington, George H. Locke, and Mary J.L. Black, surveyed the landscape of library service across the country. Its two chapters on government libraries still make sober reading today. The surveyors reported there was “very little enthusiasm for either a scholarly or a democratic book service in most of the libraries of the various government of Canada.”

Indifference and neglect continued to prevail in government circles on the topic of a national library. Libraries in Canada (1933) did not issue a rallying cry for a national library—it was content with offering advice that a national librarian should be appointed and put in charge of all the libraries maintained by the Dominion government. In this way, all their activities could be coordinated, their holdings catalogued and made available nationally over a period of time. A system of legal deposit would ensure a comprehensive collection of printed resources. Eventually, a new building could be erected to house material and provide reference and reading services. It was an opportunity, but one unlikely to be a priority in the early 1930s.

But the times did change. A Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations was struck in 1937 to examine the underlying financing for the federal and provincial basis of Confederation and the distribution of legislative powers across Canada. Amongst the many submissions were two on forming a national library by the British Columbia and Ontario Library Associations in March and April 1938. These briefs envisioned four national functions. There would be a central repository of library information together with a national union catalogue of holdings. As well, the national library would issue books and liaise with cultural organizations, such as the National Museum, National Gallery, Public Archives, and Library of Parliament. The Commission sympathized with these points and stated a national library was within the federal mandate when it reported in 1940.

During the Second World War, the Canadian Library Council and prominent university librarians continued to press the case from Queen’s and Manitoba. The Ontario Library Review published E. Cockburn Kyte’s “A National Library for Canada,” in 1939 and Elizabeth Dafoe argued for “A National Library” in the May 1944 issue of Food for Thought. The General Librarian of Parliament, Felix Desrochers, added his support in the Canadian Historical Review in 1944. But it was the Canadian Library Council, the predecessor to the Canadian Library Association, that best defined the activities that a national library might undertake in its visionary Canada Needs Libraries in 1945:
  • collecting national literature and history cooperatively with the Dominion Archives, National Gallery, and other national bodies;
  • assembling a central national reference collection;
  • lending items to other libraries;
  • providing microfilm, photostat, and other copying services for clients;
  • compiling a union catalogue to identify materials available through inter-library loan on a national scale;
  • co-ordinating book information with audio-visual aids in co-operation with the National Film Board, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, etc;
  • administering collections of Canadian books for exhibition abroad
  • publishing bibliographical works about Canada, e.g. Canadian Catalogue of Books,Canadian Periodical Index, etc.
After the formation of the Canadian Library Association in June 1946, these points were adopted and resubmitted in an influential brief to the federal government in December 1946. This particular effort, A National Library for Canada, elaborated on the benefits of a national library and the broad support the concept had garnered from other national groups: the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Political Science Association, and the Social Science Research Council of Canada. This grouping of professional organizations was an influential catalyst in convincing federal Members of Parliament in the value of a national library. There were many benefits to Canada (p. 11):
A National Library for Canada would contribute to the organization of precise knowledge, thus ensuring the most intelligent use of the country’s resources, human and material.
The existence of a research centre on Canada would encourage the writing not only of factual works useful to the legislator, administrator, business man, farmer, student, but also of imaginative works based on research which would help to interpret Canada to Canadians and also to the world.
The prestige of the National Library and its many activities would stimulate the whole library movement. Individual libraries and citizens in all parts of the country would receive assistance from its publications and travelling exhibitions, its reference and cataloguing services, and from the speeding-up of inter-library loans through use of its union catalogues.
The international services of the National Library would play an essential role in Canada’s expanding international relations.
To sum up, the National Library would be a centre of intellectual life of Canada, and a guarantee that the sources of its history will be preserved, and a symbol of our national concern with the things of the mind and the spirit.
To expedite matters, the 1946 brief of the Canadian Library Association concluded a national service could begin immediately and be housed in temporary quarters: “the National Library can begin as an Information Bureau and Bibliographical Centre, while at the same time, the investigation of the whole question of the ultimate organization of the National Library, its book stack and the building that will be needed to house its collections and its services is continued” (p. 3). The brief urged the government to form a committee reporting to a cabinet minister(s) to investigate its establishment. By June 1948 a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament approved a plan for a Bibliographic Centre as the first step towards the creation of a National Library.

In September 1948, Dr. W. Kaye Lamb was appointed Dominion Archivist, a position which he accepted on condition that he should pave the way for the establishment of a national library. Dr. Lamb had served as Provincial Archivist and Librarian of British Columbia from 1934-40 before becoming Librarian of the University of British Columbia. He had helped author British Columbia’s brief to the Royal Commission in March 1938. He set to work by establishing the Canadian Bibliographic Centre in May 1950. Dr. Lamb presented another statement to the Massey Commission in support of a national library program, a project the Royal Commission on Arts, Letters, and Sciences (1951) endorsed. Then, Dr. Lamb helped draft the National Library Act passed by Parliament in 1952 and officially became Canada’s first National Librarian on 1 January 1953.

Further Reading:
A National Library for Canada; A Brief Presented to the Government of Canada by The Canadian Library Association/Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques, The Royal Society of Canada, The Canadian Historical Association, The Canadian Political Science Association, and The Social Science research Council of Canada, December 1946 is available online at Library and Archives Canada as a submission to the Massey Commission.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

"A PLEA FOR A NATIONAL LIBRARY" — A CANADIAN ODYSSEY BEGINS In 1911

Just over a century ago, in 1911, Lawrence Burpee published an article entitled “A Plea for a National Library” in Andrew MacPhail’s February issue of University Magazine, an influential literary magazine to which many leading Canadian academics, politicians, and authors contributed. Burpee came up with a great idea: he suggested that the Dominion government create a national library in Ottawa close to Parliament Hill. Just like other European and American countries! Burpee obviously was dissatisfied that Canada lagged behind other nations. He asked: “Are we Canadians either so inferior, or so superior, to the rest of the world, that we cannot use, or do not need, such an institution?” Obviously, Burpee was a progressive thinker!

You can read his entire article on the Internet Archive. Some parts of “A Plea” are inspirational, even in today’s jaded atmosphere about the benefits of government institutions. Only the more important points from Burpee’s piece are highlighted here. What did he propose? He wanted Parliament to enact legislation to create a national library, to erect a suitable building to house national collections, and for the library to serve as both a reference and circulating library. He felt the new entity should work with the National Archives, which had been established in 1872, and with the Library of Parliament: “What is really needed is a Canadian national library, working in harmony with the two existing institutions, but filling its own field, a field which belongs neither to the national archives nor to the legislative library.”

Burpee was impressed with the workings of the Library of Congress in Washington. A smaller Canadian equivalent could be started by removing more general items from the Library of Parliament that did not suit parliamentary use, thereby establishing the working core of a national collection, about 200,000 books he estimated. By housing the national library close to Parliament Hill, a synergy of sorts could be built by employing new ideas and new technologies. “The national library would then be within easy reach of the archives, the Library of Parliament, and all the government departments, and, as has been done in Washington, it could, if necessary, be connected with the other government buildings by pneumatic tubes, for the conveyance of both messages and books.” Of course, the national library could lend to major libraries across Canada, both public and college ones.  At a time when Canadian college research libraries were meager in content and free public library service in short supply, even in major cities, his proposal was a cogent one.

Nonetheless, sufficient support for Burpee’s vision was short lived. The Dominion government had more immediate considerations, like equipping the newly founded Canadian navy, and fighting an bitterly contested election. Forty years on, Burpee was still pressing for a national library. He penned a short article, “Only Canada has no National Library” in Saturday Night on August 21, 1943, a few years before he died. He had a dream but did not live to see its fruition.

But others took up his cause. Libraries in Canada, a national study conducted by John Ridington, George H. Locke, and Mary J.L. Black, which was released in 1933, also argued the merits of a national library. Later, after the Second World War, the Canadian Library Association, in conjunction with other national organizations, issued a call for its formation in Ottawa. The idea Burpee advocated was too sound to remain a vision—it would become a reality in 1953.