Places to Grow: Public Libraries and Communities in Ontario, 1930–2000 by Lorne Bruce

Places to Grow book cover 2020

This monograph is 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, published by Dundurn Press in 1994. 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 for free 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. The book unfolds in a narrative, chronological manner with the use of primary sources, such as government correspondence, library inspector diaries, and board memoranda, as well as many secondary sources to explore how libraries integrated into Ontario's social and political fabric. Researches will find 1,200 footnotes to guide them to further sources of information they may be pursuing in the 500 pages of this book.

Places to Grow covers the history of the development of Ontario's public library system from the Great Depression to the Millennium. The impact of the depression, wartime austerity measures, and post-WW II recovery for library funding is examined in the first three chapters. The book describes postwar efforts to develop the growth of larger systems of service, library plans in the 1950s and 1960s for a provincial library system centred in Toronto, the professional growth of librarianship after 1945, and the expansion of services to underserved populations in rural areas. Library buildings, architecture, the decline of censorship, and corresponding adoption of intellectual freedom are features of the period after 1967. The development and transformation of regional library systems, the impact of political restructuring, budget cuts, and municipal amalgamations (particularly during the 1970s) is covered in detail. The inexorable progress of library automation and networking, the transition into the "Information Age" via the "Information Highway" and the Internet, the growth of digital resources, the trend to electronic-virtual-digital libraries, and many other issues are also discussed in the final two chapters.

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 December 2025 by . 

My blog posts that provide additional discussion about the development of public libraries and librarianship in Ontario.
 
The Report on Provincial Library Service by W.S. Wallace in 1957
The survey on Ontario libraries by Francis R. St. John in 1965
The Bowron Report published in 1975
The Ontario Public Library Programme Review by Peter Bassnett in 1982
The Ontario Library Association One Place to Look issued in 1990
  
My blog on the Huron County Bookmobile in 1948 is at this link. 
The Intellectual Freedom Statement adopted by the Ontario Library Association in 1963
A brief synopsis on the development of the modern public library from 1920–1965
The Centennial of Canada library building projects in Ontario in 1966–67
The rise and fall of regional library systems in Ontario from 1965–1984
The development of the Internet and Digital Library after 1990
The growthof automated and electronic libraries from 1960-2010 is at this link. 
 
 
 
 

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