The idea of the modern public library as an energetic influence promoting its services to the entire community arrived in Ontario after most Carnegie buildings were in place. Of course, the service ethic had existed before 1920, but the value of stewardship--the library as guardian or storehouse of treasures--had loomed larger for decades. As the service value progressed into the 1950s, the public library served as a place for collecting the best books and for making them useful to as many children and adults as possible. The library became a more accessible community resource and an active force: books were conveniently arranged on “open” shelves, and the librarian became a guide or intermediary to assist patrons. The modern library was an appealing idea (one not wholly accepted in some of Ontario’s hundreds of municipalities) that successfully prevailed despite the austerities of the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Following the First World War, Ontario’s tax-supported public libraries were at the forefront of a growing national movement to supply reading materials in local communities. In a nation-wide survey by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics for 1920-21, almost 90% of free public libraries were located in Ontario (186 of 210) and respectively held 75% of the total volumes, provided 67% of the total circulation, and spent about 68% of Canada’s current total. At this time, just over 50% of Ontario’s 2.9 million population was served by free libraries. Of course, many librarians were not satisfied with the status quo: members of the Ontario Library Association (OLA) and the office of the provincial Inspector of Public Libraries were formulating ideas to improve library service along “modern” lines. A new publication, Ontario Library Review, founded in 1916 by the Department of Education, gave voice to these ideas.
The new Public Libraries of Act of 1920 created a stable framework for Ontario library development for more than four decades. The Inspector of Public Libraries from 1916-29, William O. Carson, favoured per capita funding for libraries based on local community size, improved support from the provincial agency in the Department of Education, and better training for libraries to improve administration, services, and book selection. Carson, an influential leader in the library community, often stated that trained personnel and improved book stocks were the keys to library development, and he pursued this course until his untimely death in 1929. In 1920, his department published an important treatise on reference work and information sources to be used in public services. For smaller communities, the Inspector’s office provided basic training courses in librarianship in the Ontario Library School in Toronto from 1916-27. This school evolved on the University of Toronto campus and provided hundreds of students with a bachelor’s degree that became the necessary entry into librarianship. Carson also was actively involved in promoting library services in adult education and developing Ontario’s travelling library service for rural and northern areas. As a result of his leadership, there was a surge in library output during the boom years of the 1920s.
Year Prov Grant Expenses Book Expenses Vols Circulation Pop Served
1920 $ 27,686 $ 738,010 $ 120,131 1,537,517 6,316,340 1,523,873
1930 $ 39,079 $1,239,798 $ 243,145 2,142,445 11,433,208 1,976,678
Gain 41.2% 68% 102.4% 44% 81% 29.7%
Table I: Public library growth 1920-30 (Source: Ontario Report of the Minister of Education)
At the local level, the principal city libraries--Windsor, London, Hamilton, and Ottawa--were prepared to emulate the work of Toronto Public Library. Toronto opened the Boys and Girls House in 1922, the first children’s library building in the British Empire. During the same period, there was a conscious effort by public librarians to support efforts on the literary front as well. Librarians, such as George Locke, promoted library ideas and supported reading and writing by publishing in the Canadian Bookman and inviting authors to contribute to the Ontario Library Review and by supporting activities for the newly formed Canadian Book Week organized by the Canadian Authors Association from 1921-57. However, both the OLA and the CAA were small organizations, and local efforts were often sporadic. Dr. Locke, of course, published When Canada was New France in 1919, a work that became a provincial school text. Other librarians, such as B. Mabel Dunham and Fred Dela Fosse, published historical novels.
With the death of William Carson in 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, library expansion in Ontario halted. Between 1929/30 and 1934/35, free public libraries reduced their expenditures from $1.25 million to $ 1.01 before the totals trended up to $1.28 million in 1939/40. In the Depression era, survival, even in the largest libraries, was the mark of success. In Toronto, book circulation increased to 4.5 million while finances eroded: there was an emphasis on nonfiction and technical works as the jobless read books on careers and employment. In rural areas, Ontario communities began to experiment with co-operative library systems based on county jurisdictions despite the absence of enabling legislation. It was the first recognition that the traditional Ontario model library serving one community (however small and impoverished) was not adequate for its users. Only a few new buildings appeared, Ottawa’s branch (Rideau) and Kenilworth branch in Hamilton being a notable exceptions. Throughout these difficult years, Ontario libraries continued to promote reading.
At Windsor, a community that briefly went into bankruptcy and amalgamated with neighbouring municipalities, the chief librarian, Anne Hume, continued to emphasize linkages with adult education. Yet, she had to suspend issuing the Canadian Periodical Index in 1933 five years after its inception by her library; this ground-breaking endeavour resumed in 1938 centred at the University of Toronto. Toronto’s new chief librarian, Charles R. Sanderson, promoted collections via radio, and TPL’s Marie Tremaine began publishing works on Canadian bibliography and printing. The landmark national 1933 report on Canadian libraries headed by John Ridington, George Locke, and Mary Black, Libraries in Canada, applauded the development of bilingual collections at Ottawa and collections in German at Kitchener. As well, Ontario librarians became more conscious of the need to plan systematically and create provincial or national schemes for services that the Ridington report had recommended. The OLA organized joint conferences with Quebec and Maritime librarians at Ottawa in 1937 and then Montreal in 1939, where the Canadian Children’s Library Association was formed to promote reading on a national scale. In 1938, the OLA presented a Brief to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations advocating better coordination across Canada and the foundation of a national library at Ottawa.
With the onset of WWII, public libraries turned attention to providing reading materials for the armed forces and to supporting efforts on the home front. The new Inspector of libraries, Angus Mowat, entered the service and encouraged book camp libraries. Upon his return, he turned his attention to post-war planning and revision of the provincial library act. The war years were lean ones, the major highlight being the opening of the new London Public Library, with its modern architectural style and open design, in 1941. Literary efforts, such as the celebration of 500 years of printing, continued, but the war effort limited activities. Charles Sanderson worked with other Canadian librarians to form the Canadian Library Council, and develop a national approach to library issues.
As the war drew to a close, Mowat and other leaders planned a post-war revival. Mowat published a popular pamphlet outlining the need for libraries, the OLA lobbied the province for better legislation and expanded provincial library service. Efforts to create a national library association finally came to fruition after the first conference of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) met at Hamilton in summer 1946 with Freda Waldon (Hamilton Public Library) elected as its first president. In the immediate postwar period, plans for library service revolved around larger administrative units, especially co-operative county libraries. These county operations had developed in southwestern Ontario to provide bookmobile services rural populations and to school children. Also, there were efforts to establish a Provincial Library at Toronto; improved legislation to provide for certification of librarians; and better financing. As political circumstances evolved, the concept of a Provincial Library proved unworkable, in part because a parallel effort to lobby the federal government to establish a National Library at Ottawa succeeded in 1953. Consequently, the OLA and Ontario’s libraries turned to regional and county systems to service large parts of the province and to develop professional activities and plans at the national level in CLA. Provincial expansion in the post-war period began slowly but accelerated at the end of the 1950s.
Year Population 000s Population Served 000s Circulation 000s Volumes 000s
1945 4,000 2,561 13,253 3,830
1950 4,471 2,919 15,802 4,442
1955 5,266 3,597 19,310 5,516
1960 6,111 4,178 31,962 7,438
1965 6,788 5,303 44,736 10,060
Table II: Post-war public library activity, 1945-65 (Source: Ontario Library Review and Ontario Ministry of Treasury, Economics, and Intergovernmental Affairs, Ontario Statistics)
As Ontario’s population increased and became more diverse through post-war immigration, libraries kept pace with growth and expanded their range of services. Larger libraries were beginning to use revenue, formerly reserved for books and periods, to finance film and audio services. Print collections expanded as well, and librarians continued to contribute to book fairs, weeks, and publications: Josephine Phelan, who worked at Toronto Public Library, won a Governor General’s prize in 1951 for The Ardent Exile, a study on Thomas D’Arcy McGee and Lillian Smith published The Unreluctant Years in 1953, a critical work on children’s literature that remains useful today. The Edgar Osborne collection of early children’s books was established in Toronto after 1949. Young Canada Book Week, launched in 1949, was marked each year with readings and storytimes.
With the increased output in book publishing, particularly realistic fiction, it was not unnatural that public libraries began to face more scrutiny as guardians of public morality. Censorship issues remained mostly in the background because “controversial books” were often kept separate and had to be requested. But after the popular 1959 bestseller, Lolita, was missed on many library shelves, censorship issues irrupted in public. Faced with changing literary standards (even the Ontario Legislature was examining complaints about books) and criticisms of traditional book selection from Robert Fulford and Pierre Berton in the Toronto Star, librarians and trustees began to accept that social values of behaviour and language required formal policy statements that logically framed basic selection issues in terms of their collections. Nonetheless, it would take some time, most of the 1960s, before more controversial reading material, such as Playboy, would reach library magazine racks. In one area, non-English language collections, there was some progress. Toronto, of course, had well-established “foreign” collections in about 60 languages, but many smaller libraries found difficulty financing these collections and procuring suppliers. For its part, the provincial government long-delayed commissioning a study devoted to examining non-English collections until 1980.
As the decade of the 1950s closed, it was apparent that a Provincial Library would not be formed, and further planning would be necessary. A report by W. Stewart Wallace on provincial options appeared in 1957; it recommended a modest strengthening the role of the Public Libraries Branch headed by Angus Mowat. In the same year, county library legislation replacing library co-operatives was introduced, followed by regional co-operative legislation in 1959. A revamped Provincial Library Service was charged to promote these schemes. In Toronto, where a metropolitan government had been enacted in 1953, the 1960 report by the American academic, Ralph Shaw, suggested library amalgamation and centralized services. Five years later, a comprehensive provincial “St. John Report” by an American consulting firm preceded systematic changes in the Public Libraries Act in 1966. It was a thorough review that swept away the long-standing model law that had existed since 1920, notably the existence of Association Library boards that were not eligible to receive municipal tax revenue or the per capita municipal support clauses mandated for free libraries. The new 1966 Public Libraries Act formed the structure for rapid, and conflicting, developments into the mid-1980s. A long era of distinctive public library development was at an end in Ontario.
A few biographies for further reading.
Mary J.L. Black, Fort William Public Library, 1909-37
William O. Carson, Inspector of Public Libraries, 1916-29
B. Mabel Duham, Kitchener Public Library, 1908-44
George H. Locke, Toronto Public Library, 1908-37
Angus Mowat, Director of Public Libraries Branch, 1937-60
Charles Sanderson, Toronto Public Library, 1937-56
Lillian Helena Smith, Toronto Public Library 1912-52
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