Professionalization and Librarianship in Ontario, 1920–1975

There is general agreement that librarianship is a profession (or semi-profession), distinct from an occupation. Over time, it has constructed its diverse character in Britain, the United States, and Canada. For five decades until 1975, librarians in the province of Ontario sought to emulate the popular ‘trait model’ of professionalism to institutionalize legal recognition and to secure advanced social status. I believe these attempts to achieve a distinctive status may be characterized as a ‘professional project,’ the process whereby an occupation seeks to institutionalize legal recognition and improve its social standing.

The Trait Theory and Professionalism

The trait theory comprises common characteristics that Ontario librarians felt were useful in the identification of a profession in the early part of the 20th century, attributes such as:

• A formal education process for entry into a profession;
• A base of specialized knowledge, skills, and training used in work;
• Ethical principles and standards guiding practitioners;
• A service commitment in the performance of duties;
• Self-regulation by a recognized professional organization.

Ultimately, efforts by Ontario librarians were unsuccessful and they had turned away from the trait features by the mid-1970s. They were able to realize some characteristics, such as advanced educational standing and a service orientation; however, the small total number of librarians, their fluctuating leadership goals for self-regulation, and the provincial government’s preference to rein in the authority of professions became decisive barriers to achieving formal professional status. I wrote at length on this period of history in a paper published in Library and Information History more than a dozen years ago, in 2012. Complete details are available as a PDF at this link: Professionalization and Librarianship in Ontario, 1920–75. A summary review of the pursuit of the trait theory after 1920 illustrates there were difficulties in establishing unity due to conflicting goals, gender issues, a relatively small cohort of participants, and institutional constraints of a ‘managed profession’ among the four groupings (schools, special and public libraries, as well as college and universities). These issues were major constraints in securing the collective goal of a self-regulating body of professional librarians sanctioned by provincial legislation.

There was significant progress in identity formation, to be sure, during 1920–75. In the immediate decade following the First World War, librarians loosely structured the idea of a profession. Ontario was a small library stage offering few roles outside Toronto. The most notable feature of librarianship after 1920 was the predominance of young, university-trained females, a feature Mabel Dunham addressed in her Ontario Library Association (OLA) 1921 presidential address that was the subject of my earlier blog post in 2022. After the establishment in 1928 of a one-year academic program at the University of Toronto, women were drawn in growing numbers to library positions created in Ontario, thus forming the argument that librarianship was a ‘woman’s profession’ beset by low pay and inferior prestige. Still, library science remained a comparatively small field of study compared to other disciplines. An undergraduate bachelor’s degree (BLS) and eventually by 1970 a master’s degree (MLS) became established standards for entry into the profession. After the Second World War, the Ontario Department of Education linked provincial grants to public libraries with certification of librarians to recognize higher educational standards. Certification was regarded by public librarians as a step forward in seeking professional status; however, it ceased in 1972 after the viewpoint that professional standards were maintained by the entrance requirements of graduate library schools and by accreditation reviews by Canadian and American library associations prevailed.

IPLO Act 1963

As the number of university-trained graduates increased, an OLA Professional Committee was formed in 1955. This group provided the opportunity to advance the cause of professionalism. By 1960, the Institute of Professional Librarians of Ontario had incorporated as a separate entity (IPLO), attracting librarians working in all types of libraries. Its stated aims were: (1) to promote library service and increase public interest in its professional aspects; (2) to raise the standard of library services by defining and upholding standards of professional qualifications; (3) to promote the prestige, welfare, and interests of librarians; and (4) to cooperate with other organizations with similar objectives. IPLO reserved membership for qualified librarians according to its constitution. Its attempt to form a professional body with potential licensing and self-monitoring for librarians occurred when there was tremendous expansion in Ontario’s schools, universities, and colleges. On the other hand, many new library associations began to represent the interests of librarians, thus diminishing IPLO’s membership drives on a province-wide footing. The Institute never registered more than 500 members. As interest dwindled, it eventually disbanded in 1976. Reliance on the trait theory of professionalism had run its course. Greg Linnell gives a complete account of IPLO’s history in a 2008 article at this link: IPLO.

The 1960s and 1970s were a time of major societal and economic change. For librarians, who now embraced the term ‘professional librarian,’ perhaps the most important issues were the adoption of intellectual freedom principles, gender considerations, collective bargaining, and the proliferation of library associations. As well, there was more clarity about the roles of professionals and non-professionals in libraries. Library technician graduates from new community college programs assumed many tasks formerly undertaken by librarians. The challenge of automation and information technology would result in the formation of ‘systems’ departments and employment of IT experts within libraries. These trends absorbed the attention of librarians resulting in a declining concern about professional status.

Traditionally, librarians were conservative voices in censorship debates because they were salaried employees and decisions usually were beyond their control. They seldom spoke out in opposition to controversies related to book selection. ‘The right book for the right reader’ served as a watchword for decades. Substituting a good book for a bad book was a common rationale when controversies arose. Too often, however, the stance of neutrality shielded the common practice of using restricted shelves for objectionable (but legally published) books. These attitudes began to change after the OLA adopted a statement on intellectual freedom in 1963. By doing so, the association was confirming a new role for librarians that would eventually lead to annual campaigns promoting Freedom to Read.

When second-generation feminism began to take hold after the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada published its report in 1970, female librarians began reconsidering their place in the profession. Often, women were being passed over for major positions and the phrase the ‘four-fifths majority’ gained adherents who demanded merited promotions, improved salaries equal to male counterparts, and benefits such as maternity leave. These were issues that would continue to be wrestled with for some time. The gender underpinning of librarianship has been regarded as a significant factor contributing to the lack of recognition of librarianship as a profession in many studies. Still, its effect in transforming policies and improving working conditions in libraries after 1975 is undoubtedly more important. Librarians jettisoned suspicion of unions and began to embrace public sector collective bargaining in public libraries, the post-secondary sector, and schools.

A New Search for Professionalism after 1975

The ‘type-of-library’ organizational preference developed in the 1960s became entrenched in the 1970s as OLA and CLA restructured to better serve members’ interests. New associations were professionally tailored towards careers in colleges and universities, public libraries, special libraries, and schools. Librarians’ interests began to centre on personal professional development in local settings instead of a more collective profession on a provincial scale that IPLO had exemplified. Librarians began to pursue individual, discretionary claims to professional status by utilizing concepts associated with other information-management professionals and integrating these ideas within librarianship. A new model with identifiable characteristics and advantages would need to be created for professionalization to prevail. Collectively, from 1920 to 1975, some achievements, such as consensus about formal educational qualifications or intellectual freedom, had laid the foundation for better educational qualifications and principles that continue to resonate in librarianship.

From the 1970s to today it is possible to discern a new ‘discretionary’ or ‘alternative’ model of professionalism and collective identity that is adaptable to individual preferences and different types of organizations where librarians are employed. The features of this type of professionalism include:

• the evolution of an educational framework from library science to library and information science;
• acceptance by librarians of their inherent diversity shaped by ‘type of library’ activities and variety of clientele;
•  the retention of collective bargaining that took hold in the 1970s;
•  the acknowledgement of the integration of organizational work in libraries with other professionals possessing different credentials;
•  a commitment to the principle of intellectual freedom;
•  informal recognition of common aspirations identified by library associations;
•  a personal autonomy built upon knowledge, skills, and common bonds of the profession. 

There has been an increasing tendency for all professionals to work in bureaucratic organizations in the public and private sectors in the late 20th century—hospitals, government, corporations, libraries—instead of remaining independent. In The System of Professions in 1988, the sociologist Andrew Abbott placed librarianship within a grouping of information professions. Librarians work in conjunction with other professionals who perform different types of work within organizations that recognize multiple credentials. This flexible conceptualization turns its back on formally adopting characteristics associated with the trait theory of professions by proposing a ‘federated’ framework. Certainly, librarians share some common goals with information scientists, archivists, and records managers. It seems one constant is that librarians will continue to adjust their vision of professionalism to the expectations between an individual’s perspective in an informal community devoted to librarianship and their identification within an organization.

Special Libraries Organize in Montreal and Toronto, 1930–1945

Bank of Canada Library, Research Dept., Ottawa, c.1944

 Special Libraries in Canada

The special library was amongst the first libraries to appear in 18th century Canada with the creation of a small book collection in the l’Hôpital général de Québec in 1726. In the early 19th century, important collections were established in Montreal, such as the Advocates’ Library (1828) and libraries for the McGill College Medical Library (founded 1829) and the Natural History Society (founded 1825). Other libraries were developed for prominent legal, literary and scientific organizations in the following decades: the Quebec Literary and Historical Society (founded 1824) in Quebec City, the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Royal Canadian Institute established by mid-century in Toronto. In the first decades of the 20th century, growth continued to serve more formal organizations such as the Academy of Medicine (1907) in Toronto, which came under the direction of Margaret Ridley Charlton, and the Royal Bank of Canada (1913) in Montreal. Throughout this lengthy period, of course, government libraries built significant collections in provincial legislatures and in Ottawa.

The concept of a special library—collections and staff to serve governments, businesses, professional groups, public institutions such as hospitals, and a wide variety of organizations—coalesced in the early decades of the 20th century, especially after the formation of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) in 1909 in the United States and the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (1924) in Britain. The primary aims of the special library ‘movement’ in these countries generally focused on services to collect and evaluate current publications and research; to organize relevant written, unpublished or peripheral information; and to assemble and disseminate publications, information, and data (often in abstract or memorandum form) to advance individual or group work within organizations. In an era when most American and British librarians were concerned with public library progress, special librarians focused on the information process within their organization. They paid particular attention to the needs of their users, often employing non-traditional methods not taught in library schools.

Special librarians shared some ideas in common with an early 20th century European field of study, ‘documentation.’ Documentalists were concerned with any type of record and or evolving technology with the potential for providing pertinent information to further the aims of an organization or researchers. They were especially interested in building scientific indexes, the organization of subject literature, and the techniques of improving information retrieval. But, for the most part, special librarians remained oriented to providing typical library reference service through their usual resources. Indeed, this trend is evident from the activity in Canadian special libraries and publications of leading figures before the end of the Second World War.

In Canada, special library work was in a nascent stage. When American special librarians came to meet in Toronto with the American Library Association convention at Toronto in June 1927, William O. Carson, the Ontario Inspector of Public Libraries, wrote in the summer issue of Special Libraries, “If there is any definition of a special library which includes all that it is and excludes all that it is not, I have never heard it.” He went on to elaborate saying, “Speaking frankly the special library ideal has not taken hold in this country in a large way; that is, we have not gone far in the establishment of highly specialized, representative collections of books and related material, organized and operated according to the niceties and exactitudes of modern library science.” In the same June issue, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission in Toronto reported a typical library activity: keeping engineering staff posted on new developments, routing of government reports and technical publications to departments for circulation, and maintaining about 90 journals and the publications of 30 technical societies in a growing library that used the Dewey Decimal classification. Another contributor, an economist from the Royal Bank in Montreal, emphasized the importance of maintaining library data from current sources related to railroad earnings, freight loadings, automobile production, newsprint, steel, flour, as well as employment and building statistics, in order to make accurate assessments for banking executives.

Special Library Growth in Montreal and Toronto

In the late 1920s, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto were emerging centres where special library work was becoming more important when businesses and government were expanding. There was a marked increase in libraries serving insurance, banking, and other commercial enterprises, along with the development of legislative and departmental libraries at the provincial and federal levels. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics Statistical Survey of Canadian Libraries in 1929–30 identified 59 government and 59 special libraries each as separate categories. Special libraries were “commercial and technical libraries, which include those of business corporations as well as those belonging to historical or scientific societies, law societies, literary and art organizations or those of a similar nature,” and reported holdings of 464,885 items. The three largest special libraries reporting more than 25,000 items were the Royal Canadian Institute in Toronto, the New Brunswick Provincial Museum in St. John, and the Royal Society of Canada in Ottawa. In its next survey, 1930–31, the federal department combined the two groups and reported there were 132 government, technical society, and business libraries with 2,292,899 volumes, which combined represented 31 percent more books than public libraries. The vast majority of these books, of course, were held by governments, with the Library of Parliament alone holding 400,000 volumes.

Some notable librarians in the 1930–31 survey for Montreal would reappear over the next decades: Maréchal Nantel (Advocates’ Library), Olive B. Le Boutillier (Art Association of Montreal, now the Montreal Museum of Fine Art), and Mary Jane Henderson (Sun Life Insurance). Nantel was a lawyer, writer, historian, librarian of the Bar of Montreal, and a prominent figure in the Société des Dix for many years. Olive Le Boutillier was active in Montreal art circles for many years. Mary Jane Henderson became a driving force in special library work in Montreal and a familiar face in the SLA. After earning a BA at Queen’s University in 1925, she acquired a BLS from the Library School at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in the following year. Then she gained experience as a cataloguer at Columbia University and joined SLA’s New York Chapter before returning to Montreal in 1930 to organize Sun Life’s investment library. She was inducted into the SLA Hall of Fame in 1964 in recognition of her service to the profession.

In the decade of the 1930s, despite the setback of the Great Depression, Montreal was the business and financial metropolitan centre of Canada. At this time, cooperative efforts were greatly encouraged, and at the beginning of 1932, a small committee of special librarians meeting at McGill University decided to form a special libraries chapter of the SLA. Mary Jane Henderson, the librarian of Sun Life Assurance Company, became their leader and was elected president of the Montreal chapter at its first meeting on May 9, 1932. There were 19 members at this time and the first project the chapter chose was to publish a Directory of Special Libraries in Montreal in 1933 that detailed hours of opening, personnel, volumes, periodicals, telephone, and other operational details. The chapter’s quarterly Bulletin first appeared in January 1935 edited by Beatrice V. Simon, the McGill University medical librarian. As its membership grew, the chapter requested SLA hold its annual convention in Montreal. The 28th annual conference of the Special Libraries Association was held in Montreal at the Mount Royal Hotel in June 1936. Henderson was in charge of organizing local arrangements and organized a successful program under the theme, “Putting Knowledge to Work,” for the 1936 conference, which was the subject of my earlier blog.

The Montreal chapter participated in the inter-provincial library conference in Ottawa in 1937. Members from the Ontario and Quebec library associations held a session on cooperation between public and special libraries. Beatrice Simon, McGill University Medical Library and Mildrid Turnbull, the Royal Bank of Canada librarian in Montreal, spoke about efforts to avoid duplication and to use interloan. T.V. Mounteer, from the Bell Telephone Co. in Montreal, reprised his address on cooperative opportunities between industrial libraries and educational resources of the public library, a speech later published earlier in Special Libraries.

Although it appeared that the outbreak of war in 1939 would halt the progress of library growth, in fact, in early 1940, three librarians formed a plan to establish an SLA Toronto Chapter: Pauline Mary Hutchison, librarian of Canada Life Assurance, Peter Morgan, librarian of the Confederation Life Association, and Allan McKenzie, librarian of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. They called for a meeting in May where ten people approved a decision to request chapter status, which the SLA approved that summer. The first regular meeting of the chapter was held at the Staff House of the Toronto Public Library on September 17, 1940, with Pauline Hutchison as the chair. The organization soon attracted new members, among them George A. Johnson (Law Society of Upper Canada), Edna Poole (Academy of Medicine), Grace Pincoe (Art Gallery of Toronto, now Art Gallery of Ontario), and Allan McKenzie of the Canadian Bank of Commerce.

Toronto Daily Star April 15, 1943

 The chapter’s first bulletin was published in January 1941, and a wartime project, the Air Force library, began in January 1943. Members, under the direction of Mary Silverthorn and her Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division Committee, sorted and arranged books in the division depot and collected, by purchase and donation, hundreds of other books and magazines, both technical and recreational that were sorted and catalogued at the Confederation Life Association and returned at the depot for distribution. The chapter’s wartime meetings continued with some prominent speakers. Grace Pincoe spoke on the Art Gallery of Toronto collection and its activities and Margaret Avision, who later became a distinguished poet, spoke about “Everything about Something” and her work at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs Library in the later stages of the war before she accepted a position at the University of Toronto library. Marie Tremaine spoke on “Can you tell me? Please,” a thoughtful piece on typical reference work with the public she experienced at the Toronto Public Library. She would become one of the founding members of the Bibliographical Society of Canada in 1946.

By the war’s end, the DBS Survey of Libraries for 1946–48 indicated the progress of all groupings of special libraries after 1930. There were now 173 in total: 83 federal and provincial, 36 business, 13 law, 22 technical and professional, and 19 ‘other’ (e.g., libraries for the blind) with a reported 110 trained staff in library science. The initiative and enthusiasm of the two Canadian chapters, active forces in Canadian librarianship, could reasonably be credited for some of this growth. These chapters attracted members in smaller Canadian cities and in western Canada from Winnipeg as far as Victoria and Trail, BC. In the postwar period, they would participate in a series of joint regional conferences with the SLA’s Western New York Chapter in 1947–49. Several years later, in 1953, the Toronto Chapter would host the SLA annual conference in Toronto.

My blog post on the 1936 Special Libraries conference at Montreal is available at this link.

In 2003, Margaret Ridley Charlton was designated as a person of national historic significance.

Some useful publications during this period include:

Marvin, Donald M. “Relationship of the Library and Research Departments to the Bank.” Special Libraries 18 (Sept. 1927): 215–219.
Nantel, Maréchal. “The Advocates’ Library and the Montreal Bar.” Law Library Journal 27 (July 1934): 75–97.
Mounteer, T.V. “The Special Library: Partner in Industrial Education.” Special Libraries 27 (Nov. 1936): 298–301.
Morgan, Peter. “On Becoming a Special Librarian.” Special Libraries 28 (March 1937): 87–90.
Le Boutillier, Olive B. “The Clipping File in an Art Library.” Special Libraries 31 (April 1940): 131–132.
Pincoe, Grace. “A Trip to Study Methods in American Art Museum Libraries.” Bulletin of the Toronto Chapter, Special Libraries Association 2 (May 1942): [3-4].
Saunders, Janet F. “Development of the International Labour Office Library.” Special Libraries 33 (Oct. 1942): 290–294.
“The Special Library in Canada.” Wilson Library Bulletin 19 (Nov. 1944): 195–197.
Saunders, Janet F. “S.L.A. International Relations.” Special Libraries 35 (Dec. 1944): 490–493.
McKenzie, Allan. “Should Fiction Be Encouraged in Special Libraries?” Special Libraries 36 (June 1945): 147–150.
Lewis, Grace S. “Library of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Ottawa, Canada.” Special Libraries 36 (Oct. 1945): 358–360.
Pratt, Phebe G. “School of Social Work Library.” Special Libraries 37 (April 1946): 115–117.
Pearce, Catherine Anne. “The Development of Special Libraries in Montreal and Toronto.” MS in LS thesis, University of Illinois, 1947. She was president of the Montreal Chapter from 1941–43 and worked in the United States after the war.

 

Canadian Mid-century School Libraries and Modern Education, 1945—1950

School Libraries in Canada before 1945

Although Canadian school libraries exhibited signs of progress during the 1930s, this work came to a halt for the most part at the outset of the Second World War. In the thirties, while British Columbia and Ontario schools continued the tradition of small classroom collections, promotion of recreational reading, and reliance to a great extent on public libraries for book stocks and branches in schools, there were indications of change. In Ontario, Margaret Fraser, an influential high school librarian at Galt (now Cambridge), outlined what she felt the mission of the school library should be in 1938: “The school library should be the centre of all school activities, working with the teachers and students of all grades and departments. Its work is varied and continuous, but the librarian has three main aims: ( 1) to encourage reading, (2) to assist the teacher, (3) to teach the student to help himself.” In British Columbia, a Manual for Small School Libraries was issued in 1940 that recommended the American Library Association standards of a trained teacher-librarian and separate classroom for elementary schools with more than 100 pupils and a teacher-librarian or full-time librarian for schools with more than 500 students.

 Interest in school libraries did continue during the wartime years, the subject of my earlier blog on Louise Riley and Jack Brown at this link. They explored school-public library cooperation and the need for greater provincial support from departments of education. Riley’s thesis in particular was an important study of school services in larger cities with more than 10,000 population in several provinces. She reported the typical state of affairs: “In Canada, classroom collections are provided by the public library or the school board or both to some elementary and junior high schools in thirty-one of the fifty cities included in this report.” As for centralized libraries: “There are some centralized school libraries in elementary and junior high schools in fifteen public school and three separate school systems.“ She concluded, “The school library movement is in its infancy in Canada.”

Towards the end of WW II, the Canadian Library Council issued Canada Needs Libraries; it included provincial statements on the needs for improved school services. Although the main focus was on public library development, school libraries, especially at the secondary level, received more attention in the Ontario and Saskatchewan briefs. With the formation of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) in 1946, a truly national voice came into being for library work with children, adolescents, and students. Within a year, a section of CLA was established that included librarians interested in work for children and youth. In November 1947, the Association's journal published several articles on school library work, with a leading article that pointed to new directions and a new philosophy of service related to educational trends in North America. The principal author was a former teacher, Lillian Lyle Evans (BA 1940, Saskatchewan, and BLS 1942, Toronto), newly appointed as supervisor of school libraries for Saskatchewan in 1946. After working briefly at Toronto Public Library in the Kipling Room, the section for adolescents, and a Florida school library during the war, she became a dynamic force in Canadian school librarianship and eventually Canadian School Libraries Association president in 1969 –70. She set forth a new compelling role for school libraries that was being cultivated in the United States in the CLA Bulletin published in November 1947.

To-day the school library is conceived as a functional unit of the school, that is as a workshop or laboratory where individuals and classes carry on desirable activities and have valuable experiences. The school library now makes possible investigation and research, curriculum enrichment, independent study and recreational reading. This new and broader concept is a direct outgrowth of recent social and educational changes.

Canadian School Library Progress after 1945

Lyle Evans was referring to the progressive child-centred concept of schooling championed by John Dewey which flourished from the 1920s to 1950s. The traditional, conservative approach in education for a long time was teacher-centred. There was an emphasis on oral instruction, reading and reciting facts from a few graded texts, taking notes, memorizing information by repetition, and studying individually or in classroom groups. Small book collections usually satisfied this concept. Progressivism meant fitting instruction to the different needs of each pupil; it meant curriculum revision and the eclipse of rote textbook learning; it meant new teaching methods focusing on real-world situations for pupil and group activities; and it meant a new emphasis on understanding social and civil affairs. For school library collections it meant supplying demands for wide reading and provision of varied reference sources. For library staffing it meant training in teaching and librarianship in order to guide or instruct pupils in selecting appropriate material to read and helping students clarify their thinking and reaching valid conclusions. In Lyle Evans' estimation, “the school library is an integral part of the educative process, and its objectives are actually identical with those of any modern educational program.” At mid-century, progressive education was considered to be ‘modern’ and infused ideas and methods in the United States and Canada despite critics who preferred standardized testing and high standards, such as Hilda Neatby, who published So Little For the Mind in 1953.

    The November 1947 pages of the CLA Bulletin featured prominent contemporary figures in school librarianship. Margaret E. Reid, an Ontario College of Education and Queen's University graduate, wrote on student library usage in St. Catharines. She outlined the usual types of student use: classes with a period of library science (normally grades nine and ten), classes brought to the library by teachers, and individual pupils from all grades. She believed student use of libraries could lay the foundation for a varied adulthood. The chief librarian at Trois Rivières, Claire Godbout, described how the newly established public library provided a school service for young students at six school deposits tended to on a weekly basis by visiting staff. Joseph A. Brunet, the director of school libraries for the Montreal Commission of Catholic Schools, was optimistic about progress in Quebec, especially in Montreal where books were selected, classified, and cataloged at the head office by a professional staff. Rural schools in Quebec were supplied with grants and small deposits of books for classrooms. He believed the idea of the school library was taking shape and gaining ground each year. Mary Silverthorn, a University of Toronto Library School professor, provided an extensive list of book selection aids. She noted there was reliance on American sources and that “school library work in Canada is hampered by the lack of catalogues and book lists designed for Canadian use.” Dorothy Cullen, the director of the Prince Edward Island Libraries regional system, reported on the various ways its branches and headquarters supplied library service to all the island schools with deposits and books-by-mail. There was also a collection of professional literature for teachers at the regional  headquarters in Charlottetown.

    Summaries of provincial school library developments were also provided. In British Columbia, the Department of Education offered library training in summer school courses for teachers. These teacher-librarians held library positions in graded elementary schools and some junior high schools; however, in high schools only teachers who were also fully qualified librarians were appointed to full-time library positions. The Manitoba Department of Education administered book grants and selection guides: “For the year 1946 books were selected for 1,557 one-room schools and 103 two-room schools, and orders checked for 224 graded schools, thus providing libraries for 2,790 teachers. For these schools 3,798 magazine subscriptions were placed.” A professional library for Winnipeg teachers was located in the reading room of the departmental library, but it was noted that professional training had not kept pace with book distributions. Lyle Evans reviewed her new duties in Saskatchewan and pointed to the successful initiative in a Cupar school district northeast of Regina to establish a core collection of texts, supplementary texts, and reference books for each rural school. A central pooled collection was started in the school unit main office staffed by a teacher acting as teacher-librarian. She felt, “The experiment has been so successful and attracted so much interest that many other units and [school] superintendents have been asking for guidance in organizing school library services in their areas.” Her work justified her enthusiasm about modernization that

The school library, then, provides material to enrich the school curriculum, develops in pupils good attitudes and habits of study, and promotes a lifelong interest in reading for information, recreation and mental stimulation. That is, the school library is an integral part of the educative process, and its objectives are actually identical with those of any modern educational program.

Despite this inspirational rhetoric, school libraries faced a difficult task implementing better conditions. When the Canadian Education Association surveyed school libraries on a province-by-province basis in 1951, it remarked on the general under developed state of affairs:

It will be noted that proportionately few elementary schools have separate libraries; classroom collections for lending and reference are more common. Libraries are found somewhat more frequently in secondary schools, but there too the classroom collection persists. The library collection as a separate and well equipped unit administered by a qualified person as an essential school service, just as gymnasium or cafeteria, has not been developed on an all-inclusive scale.

    Canadian school librarians were not early advocates in supporting progressive ‘modern’ education philosophy. But after 1945, the provision of resources for critical thinking, experimental learning, developing social skills and other worthy features of progressive education came to the fore. Mary Mustard, a prominent school librarian from Brantford, Ontario, declared that a main goal of school library service was “to develop character through desirable book habits” thereby escaping the dull textbook routines of the past. At the CLA School Library Institute held in Winnipeg in June 1949, participants were excited to hear Amelia Munson, an experienced American youth services exponent from New York Library, speak to the issue of ‘Growth Through Reading,’ which offered students opportunities to experience develop personally through the medium of books. In the following year, 1950, a Young People’s Section of CLA was formed, distinct from Children’s Librarians. The new section included public and school library work for teens, and in August 1953 it organized a successful thematic session in Ottawa during CLA’s annual meeting—‘Effective School Library Service.’ Participants learned the effectiveness of any school library was determined by four factors: library accommodation, an adequate collection, a trained librarian, and an appropriate program of activities. Subsequently, in June 1958, the section sponsored a Workshop on Education of School Librarians at Quebec City where Lyle Evans reported on the current state of affairs for teacher-librarian training: “Six provinces regularly offer courses, two offer courses occasionally, and two do not offer any courses.” The workshop registrants concluded national standards were needed to improve training for school library staffing, a task that would take several more years to complete.

    From the outset of the decade and throughout the 1950s, the varied administrative arrangements and finances for schools determined by Canadian departments of education and school boards absorbed the attention of librarians, teachers, and administrators. There were thousands of school boards across the country and the progressive nature of reforms varied a great deal. Traditional pedagogic methods and the 3 R’s were still important. Library proponents were grappling with the organization, staffing, facilities, and collections of school libraries in large bureaucratic provincial structures that were steadily reducing the number of school districts. Although improvements in services would continue to be gradual during the postwar period, nonetheless, after 1950 a national consensus was developing to support better libraries in schools, for formal education programs, and services based on child-centred learning. Many of these issues would be the result in a successful two-day national conference on school librarianship held in Edmonton in 1959 discussed in my previous blog. After 1960, advances in school librarianship would accelerate even as the influence of progressive education itself would begin to face challenges from conservative educators, competing philosophies of education, new media, and rapid technological change.

References

Margaret Fraser, “High School Libraries in Ontario.” The School [Secondary Ed.]; A Magazine Devoted to Elementary and Secondary Education 27 (Oct. 1938): 148–151.

British Columbia Public Library Commission. Manual for Small School Libraries. Victoria: The Commission, 1940.

My blog on Canada Needs Libraries is at this link. 

Lyle Evans, “The School Library in Modern Education.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 3  (Nov. 1947): 29–30.

Mary Mustard,  “Freedom from Textbooks.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 6 (Sept. 1949): 35, 87.

Books for Youth: Everyone’s Responsibility; School Library Institute Proceedings, June 24-25, 1949, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, 1949.

National Meeting on Canadian School Libraries and Librarianship (1959)

Proceedings of the Library Service in the Schools Workshop, University of Alberta, Edmonton, June 26–27, 1959. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association/Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques, September 1959. 59 p.

Canadian School Libraries before 1950

Although there were hundreds of Canadian school libraries by the mid-19th century, these were primarily small, informal classroom collections managed by busy one-room teachers. As they developed in the first decades of the 20th century, larger elementary school libraries remained underfunded and relied on access to small classroom collections. Students often used children’s services supplied by public libraries (notably Toronto Public Library) or bookmobile services from regional or county libraries, a system patterned on British practice which offered the advantage of recreational reading. Separate centralized libraries in schools, distinct from public libraries, began to appear first in the secondary school sector, a model influenced by American experience that emphasized direct connections with school authorities and formal educational programs. In the 1930s, the efforts of energetic librarians, such as Joseph A. Brunet, the director of school libraries for the Montreal Catholic School Commission, Arthur Slyfield (Oshawa), Margaret Fraser (Galt, now Cambridge), Mary Mustard (Brantford), and Isabel McTavish (Vancouver), began to spur development by advocating better facilities and collections, encouraging student use of libraries, initiating regional surveys, and publishing handbooks for students,

In the immediate postwar period following 1945, there was more government emphasis on improving services with the appointment of supervisors in departments of education: prominent librarians such as Lillian Evelyn (Lyle) Evans in Saskatchewan in 1946 and Hélène Grenier in the Montreal Catholic School Commission in 1952. During this period, the Young People’s Section of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) addressed many problems related to school libraries; nonetheless, progress seemed to unfold at a snail’s pace. When the Canadian Education Association surveyed the nation‘s school libraries in 1951, it revealed their underdeveloped state; for example, in Nova Scotia, “most of the schools in the province have book collections, but more than half of the 554,187 volumes in individual schools are felt by the Department [of Education] to be of little value.” Several years later, in 1958, when the Dominion Bureau of Statistics published a major survey of elementary and secondary schools in communities of 10,000 and over, it received responses from 200 school boards in 123 centres representing 2,951 schools. The survey revealed that only 1,058 schools (about a third), with a total pupil enrollment of 668,680, operated centralized libraries. Total stock amounted to 2,898,780 volumes or 4.5 volumes per pupil. Fully trained staff, with teacher training and library training to a degree level, was concentrated in intermediate or junior high schools and secondary schools, where 129 professionals supervised 270 libraries.

Canadian Library Association Meeting on School Libraries in 1959

To spur activity, CLA initiated action to plan a national workshop on schools to bring together leaders from seven national associations: the Canadian Association of School Inspectors & Superintendents, Canadian Book Publishers Association, Canadian Education Association, Canadian Home and School and Parent-Teacher Federation, Canadian School Trustees Association, and the Canadian Teachers Federation. CLA aimed to prompt discussion on problems of mutual interest and to allow participants to become acquainted personally. It was hoped that specific ideas arising from this first national workshop would encourage the sponsoring organizations to hold future sessions on specific subjects. The two-day workshop was held at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, in June 1959. The 195 registered delegates included school superintendents, principals, school board and public library board trustees, and public and school librarians. Formal presentations and separate discussion groups dealt with different topics. In general, the entire workshop was themed around providing resources, training librarians to provide services, and how services could best be organized.

Nancy Day, the Supervisor of Library Services in the South Carolina State Department of Education and former President of the American Association of School Libraries in 1954–55, addressed a general session on Friday morning with her topic, “The Place of School Library Service in Education.” She emphasized the importance of recognizing the library as part of the curriculum where learning and learning skills occur. Librarians should select materials, provide reading guidance, and encourage the use of the collection. It is imperative to have someone who knew the collection, the curriculum, and how to work with both children and teachers. Several freewheeling discussions on various issues took place in Friday afternoon breakout groups. There was a sharp division of opinion between school superintendents and librarians about how best to develop libraries initially. The former believed there was a more urgent need to get more books into the schools, their view being expressed as ‘books before librarians.’ The public library’s role in providing student resources also came under scrutiny. Many delegates felt the responsibility for libraries in schools should come under a Department of Education. Public library activities should encourage school libraries but not directly provide the services, even though some school officials tended to expect such assistance. There was a shift in thinking towards supporting the need for education officials to direct and fund libraries distinct from public libraries. Although cooperation was stressed, there was skepticism that public and school libraries could be combined successfully. There was general agreement that a certified teacher with some professional library training would be the ideal staff for a school library; but for larger schools, a professional librarian with a BEd could best work with teachers. Generally, delegates favoured the centralized library, a dedicated space available to all students which could also supply and refresh classroom collections and support provincial curricula.

On Saturday, Dr. Marion Jenkinson of the University of Alberta Faculty of Education gave an excellent summary of four topics that every group wrestled with. First, the approach librarians utilized to student reading was essential: the librarian viewed children individually, not as part of a classroom pattern. Second, improvements in teacher training were necessary. Thirdly, although there was an air of prestige bestowed on reading, often readers were derided as ‘eggheads’ or ‘squares.’ The Alberta professor declared, “We have to turn the TV image into the feeling that the reader is the ‘best sort of guy to be.’” Fourth, the issue of teacher training was paramount:

Teacher training is not adequate. Elementary teachers frequently receive only seven months training. Here librarians can help in advising in the training. Librarianship is a graduate profession; in the elementary schools there is need for a graduate teaching profession. In a graduate programme for teachers, there should be courses in children's literature. (p. 51)

Dr. Jenkinson stated that teachers, interested groups, and parents should work cooperatively with librarians and education officials in their local communities. She concluded by stressing the need to clarify important issues. There should be more concise definitions about school library work: (1) identify the function of the teacher-librarian as opposed to the children’s librarian; (2) clarify the purposes of different branches of library services; (3) articulate the basis for the selection of books; and (4) establish priorities in school library service. At the end of the workshop, delegates adopted two resolutions: they requested the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (DBS) to conduct a representative survey of libraries in publicly operated schools, and they asked for the Wilson Education Index to include the periodical, The Reading Teacher, in its indexing service.

It is difficult to assess the impact of the 1959 national workshop, but there is no doubt that the pace of school library progress quickened in the 1960s when provincial governments reduced the number of school districts and strengthened financial revenues. The DBS began surveying school libraries on an annual basis and by 1964, the Bureau reported that there were 2,595 centralized libraries staffed by 263 full-time professional school librarians. When Leonard Freiser was hired as chief librarian by the Toronto Board of Education in 1960, he began developing a centralized education center to provide resources for teachers and students in separate libraries in schools independent from Toronto Public Library. In Quebec, Alvine Bélisle became the provincial director of school libraries within the Department of Public Instruction in 1961. During 1961 the Canadian School Library Association (CSLA) was formed as a separate CLA division. The Association soon began publishing a lively quarterly newsletter, the Moccasin Telegraph. It also launched a national award in partnership with Encyclopaedia Britannica for elementary school libraries in 1967. School librarians also organized a Workshop on School Library Standards at the annual CLA conference held in Toronto in June 1965. Two years later, in 1967, Standards of Library Service for Canadian Schools was published. However, by the early 1970s, it was evident that in terms of facilities, personnel, and collections, school libraries for the most part did not meet the 1967 standards.

The meeting in Edmonton also allowed school librarians to network and develop professionally. Laurence Wiedrick, a teacher-librarian at Eastglen Composite High School in Edmonton, began teaching library studies at the University of Alberta in 1964. Another attendee, John Wright, librarian at the Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon, was appointed Supervisor of School Libraries for the Saskatchewan Department of Education in 1963 and later became president of CSLA in 1967. His colleague, Lyle Evans, followed him as CSLA president in 1969. Many other teachers, librarians, and administrators returned home to continue improving reading, teaching, and learning in elementary and secondary schools. A national consciousness and community of interest had been created on an inter-provincial scale. The delineation of fundamental issues was an essential ingredient in fostering progress in the subsequent decade. The recognition of the need for better-quality, modernized school libraries was an important (and lasting) outcome of the workshop.

Edwin Williams and Robert Downs Report on Canadian Academic Libraries, 1962—1967

Resources of Canadian University Libraries for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Report of a Survey for the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges, by Edwin E. Williams. Ottawa: National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges, November 1962. 87 p.

Resources of Canadian Academic and Research Libraries/Ressources des Bibliothèques d’Université et de Recherche au Canada by Robert B. Downs. Ottawa: Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, 1967. 301 p.

By the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, the number of full-time undergraduate and graduate university students across Canada was increasing dramatically, and provincial governments were granting new charters to several universities, such as Victoria, Calgary, Waterloo, York, Guelph, Brock, and Carleton. Additional funding for faculty, teaching staff, and buildings came from federal and provincial governments to accommodate this growth. Consequently, the expansion of libraries, especially collections, formed part of ambitious educational plans, a library phase which might appropriately be termed ‘mid-century modernization.’

Edwin E. Williams Reports on Canadian Academic Libraries, 1963

During this period, library concerns were noted by the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges (NCCUC), which represented university presidents. The genesis of national planning for university libraries grew out of a recommendation by a library committee appointed by the NCCUC to survey academic libraries to evaluate their research capabilities, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Fourteen of Canada’s largest academic libraries, which collectively held almost six million volumes, were selected for the survey. As with many Canadian studies, financing for the study came from the United States. Funds from the Council on Library Resources were secured, and Edwin E. Williams, the Counsellor to the Director of Collections of Harvard University Library, was chosen to conduct the survey. Edwin Williams held many senior positions at the Harvard University library from 1940 until his retirement in 1980. More importantly, he was quite familiar with the Farmington Plan, a national project organized by American libraries to develop a cooperative acquisitions program for foreign materials. His study was conducted through conversations with 211 faculty members, the distribution of a questionnaire to professors on the strength of collections, the compilation of a checklist of 10 periodicals in each of 24 fields in the humanities and social sciences, and personal visits to each university. Williams published his findings in September 1962.

The findings of Williams’ six-week survey were not surprising to informed observers.

Any recapitulation of strong points in Canadian research collections soon makes it evident that, except in Canadian subjects and in mediaeval studies, there are no collections in major fields that are outstanding as a whole — assuming that an outstanding collection is one strong enough to attract scholars from other countries. The collections that have reached this level are devoted to individuals or to comparatively narrow fields — Soviet church-state relations and D. H. Lawrence at Alberta; South China gazetteers and Robert Burns at British Columbia; Kipling at Dalhousie; the psychomechanics of language at Laval; Urdu, Thomas Browne, Noel Buxton, Viscount Hardinge, and Hume at McGill; Icelandic at Manitoba; Bonar Law at New Brunswick; and certain fields of Italian and Spanish drama, plus Coleridge, Dickens, Petronius, Tennyson, and Yeats at Toronto. (p 48)

Williams discovered universities were enthusiastic about the potential of inter-library loan even for undergraduates, a practice he cautioned against because it was not a substitute for strong campus collections. To further serious research, he recommended that the National Library’s Union Catalogue project move ahead more rapidly along with the publication of a union list of serials in the humanities and social sciences. This latter task began in 1963 and was completed in 1968 with publication of Periodicals in the Social Sciences and Humanities Currently Received by Canadian Libraries. He discussed the advantages of strengthening research collections through an undertaking similar to the Farmington Plan, but felt libraries were not adequate to embark on this expenditure on their own. Instead, he suggested it would be more desirable to use “special funds” for specialization that could make inter-lending more effective for postgraduate programs. An extension of existing Canada Council grants would benefit the entire country and allow universities to build their resources using local revenue. To spur cooperation in the development of research collections, the surveyor advised the creation of an Office of Canadian Library Resources in the National Library. The work of this office would allow universities to build substantial collections locally and ultimately serve national research activity. Another benefit would be the ability to compete more effectively in second-hand book markets for significant publications.

Williams declared that it would be expensive to strengthen university library collections, nevertheless, it was a necessary step to further national and regional educational goals. He concluded:

Yet, while foundations are being laid across the country, the National Library ought to move ahead rapidly, and the existing strong collections at Toronto and other Canadian universities should be improved; failure to develop the National Library and to make great collections out of good ones would demonstrate that Canada aspires to be no more than a dependency of other countries in graduate study and research in the humanities and social sciences. (p. 60)

Resources of Canadian University Libraries was enthusiastically received and served as a catalyst for transformative change. When the Canadian Association of College and University Libraries (CACUL) became a constituent part of the Canadian Library Association in June 1963, it assumed a leadership role in representing library concerns. CACUL immediately realized the importance of Williams’ findings and began to liaise with the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges (NCCUC), representing university presidents dealing with the Williams’ recommendations. The new library group advocated for the establishment of an Office of Library Resources, a proposal the NCCUC agreed to support later in the year. Eventually, in 1968, this office came into existence and became part of the collection development branch in the 1970s.

Later, in the fall 1963, when the NCCUC annual conference was held, CACUL successfully secured support for a more extensive national survey of academic libraries to expand and amplify the briefer work of Edwin Williams, which had been limited to library resources for graduate study in the humanities and social sciences. Subsequently, the NCCUC (reconstituted as the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, AUCC) commissioned Professor Vincent Bladen to conduct a study of financing higher education in 1964 to which CACUL made a presentation on the need for greatly increased library funding, especially from the federal government. Also, the CACUL submission advised that 10% of a university operating budget be regarded as a minimum standard for collection purposes. The Bladen Commission adopted the federal proposal for funding in its final report, Financing Higher Education in Canada, in 1965. A year later, in 1966, the Canada Council announced annual funding for university libraries for acquiring research collections which totalled more than $3,000,000 before it concluded in 1969.

 Robert B. Downs Reports on Canadian Academic Libraries, 1967

The AUCC also agreed to launch a more extensive national survey with grants from the Canada Council and the Council on Library Resources in Washington, D.C. Robert B. Downs, the Dean of Library Administration at the University of Illinois, was invited to lead a survey which included three Canadians. Downs had pursued an illustrious academic career and served as President of the American Library Association in 1953–53. His mandate was quite broad: he was charged with assessing library administrative and technical organization, staffing, buildings, collections, and financing to maintain expected growth in the following decade. The Downs report was published in 1967 entitled Resources of Canadian Academic and Research Libraries.

Robert Downs submitted his report with a wealth of information on the current conditions of university libraries. There were 35 tables of data on 43 institutions that revealed marked progress had been made just a few years after the Williams report had landed on many desks; for example, 17 libraries reported adding an annual average of more than 20,000 volumes between 1961–66, a noticeable improvement with immediate postwar conditions, 1945–60. Indeed, 1963–64 marked the first time university libraries collectively began to add more than a million volumes per year to their holdings. Resources studied eleven major areas including administration, technical services, buildings, reader services (reference, instruction, and circulation), mechanization and automation, finances to sustain growth, cooperative activities, collections, special research holdings, and faculty and student views of the library. Downs’ investigation was accomplished by conducting interviews, questionnaires, checklists, and personal observation. A total of 41 recommendations were made, many of which became standard guidelines for professional decision-making for a generation of administrators and librarians. The array of information Downs produced also influenced university administrators because they also believed in the value of higher education and the need for accessibility to satisfactory library resources and services.

Many of Downs’ recommendations seem rudimentary by today’s standards; for example, “for economy, efficiency, and effective service, library administration should be centralized” (p. 2), but the prevalence of 1960s campus departmental libraries and diffused authority warranted this type of review. In the area of automation, which libraries were only beginning to experiment with, Downs could only hint at future directions: “Developments in data processing have made feasible the concept of national and international library networks, offering new approaches to problems of gathering and retrieving certain types of information” (p. 5). The provision of photocopying services, established building standards, the recognition of professional librarians as key members of the academic community, the separation of clerical and professional duties in staffing, the exercise of leadership on the part of the National Library and the National Science Library in fostering cooperation, special grants from the Canada Council, and sharing of library resources on a local, regional, and national basis were all flagged as necessary to encourage growth. Downs reiterated William’s proposal that 10% of an institutional budget should be earmarked for library collections. Especially concerning collections, the report was explicit: “In no case should a college or university provide less than $150 per year for library maintenance for each full-time student. (p. 7). Further, Downs proposed that

Sustained financial support over a period of years is essential to the growth of strong libraries in Canadian universities; additional appropriations totaling $150,000,000 for collection development will be required over the next decade, beyond present budget allotments and the current rate of annual increases, for retrospective collecting, if these libraries are to reach a stage of development comparable to the leading American university libraries. (p. 6)

One interesting section of Resources that sparks interest now reveals student attitudes to 1960s libraries. Students did not prefer study halls and often brought their own books for study purposes. They indicated more reserve books were needed, assistance from staff was inadequate, and material was in another library elsewhere on campus. For their part, faculty suggested stronger research collections, staff specialists for collection development and reference, speedier processing and access to acquired materials, duplicate copies of books in frequent demand, improved inter-library loans, more efficient circulation systems, and, in a direct conflict with Down’s recommendation, more departmental libraries, especially in the sciences.

The Down’s report was well received. It became the subject of a conference—“Libraries for Tomorrow”—held in Montreal in April 1968 that the AUCC and CACUL convened to discuss the future of Canadian academic libraries. About seventy librarians attended, and papers were presented on future financing by Robert Blackburn (Toronto) and general trends in higher education by Basil Stuart-Stubbs (British Columbia). Although this meeting, subsequent discussions, and library reports on standardization and financing by the AUCC did not constitute a comprehensive review and working plan for the implementation of the Downs Report, many of its recommendations were taken to heart across Canada’s burgeoning university sector. In 1967, Downs concluded that “despite their rapid progress, the Canadian university libraries, on the whole, will require years of concentrated effort to bring their collections up to a high point of excellence.” (p. 224), and by 1971, there were six libraries with more than a million volumes: Toronto, McGill, British Columbia, Western, Montreal, and Laval.

For CACUL members, the report highlighted an area of significance that Downs was known for: his support for academic recognition of librarians. “In the case of college and university libraries, the institutions that will be most successful in attracting and holding able staff members are those where librarians are recognized as an integral part of the academic ranks, a vital group in the educational process, with high qualifications for appointment, and all the rights and privileges of other academic employees (p. 110).” When Downs compiled his survey, academic librarians were subject to various terms of service and methods of appointment. He suggested enlisting the support of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to improve and standardize the status of university professional librarians, an approach adopted by CACUL that was to prove beneficial in gaining status for librarians and creating a common community of interest with faculty during the 1970s.

However, future economic conditions in the 1970s, namely, rising costs and slower growth, often referred to as ‘stagflation,’ would curb the rapid development of university libraries. Along with increasing rates of inflation, administrators faced new challenges, such as providing resources to support Canadian studies, automated bibliographic control, computerized searching, and sharing information through networking on a national scale. Libraries had to contend with the ‘information explosion’ as books and journals flooded the scholarly marketplace. New university programs were launched that often lacked adequate library resources. New faculty appointments were made, although it was difficult to support their specializations. The advent of cross-disciplinary programs required new library resource fields and services. The 1970s would be just as challenging as the 1960s, because  expectations exceeded eroded revenues. Observers of retrenchment in the decade following the Downs report often refer to a ‘golden age’ of university growth in the 1960s that had passed.

The reports by Edwin Williams and Robert Down were valuable reviews of current conditions and helpful guides to future action. As well, the reports heightened awareness and visibility concerning library needs in Canadian higher education. The two authors provided an astonishing wealth of information about collections, contemporary conditions, and potential costs of funding improved services. But there was no master national plan envisaged. While CACUL and CAUT assumed leadership for professional librarian concerns, the AUCC and senior university officials, together with library directors, were ultimately responsible for encouraging and implementing local progress. For the most part, the efforts of these groups and individuals were successful.

The Williams Report is available on the Internet Archive.

The Downs Report is available on the Internet Archive.