Library History Today Blog

Early in the twentieth century a small group of trustees, librarians, and persons interested in libraries met in Toronto at the Ontario Education Department's Normal School located on St. James Square (present-day Ryerson University). They planned to form an association to promote public library development in Ontario, despite the their small numbers--just more than thirty attendees. The delegates elected James Bain, Jr., chief librarian of the Toronto Public Library as President of the Ontario Library Association. He read an inspiring paper, "The Library Movement in Ontario." The new Secretary from Lindsay, Edwin A. Hardy, gave a more pragmatic paper, "An Outline Programme of the Work of the Ontario Library Association." Both men would be instrumental in the following years in which the OLA would vigorously promote public libraries and become one of the most successful library associations in North America. Other presentations focused on Canadian literature a...

The Institution shall be called The Toronto Public Library—and the date of its commencement is hereby declared to be the 27th of October, 1842. So read a small pamphlet that outlined the bylaws and the constitution of yet another Canadian subscription library formed in the first part of the nineteenth century. The entry fee for a subscriber was £1, the quarterly subscription 2 shillings/6 pence, and payment to the Librarian 1 shilling. Like many of the more than fifty subscription libraries established in the Canadian colonies before 1850, the library did not enjoy a long lifespan. Until now, its formation has not attracted much attention, but a perusal through the pages of the British Colonist for the last months of 1842 provides insight into the slow development of the 'public library' concept in Upper Canada (called Canada West from 1841-66 and Ontario after 1867) early in the 1840s. My interest in this particular library is its name--Toronto Public Library--and the rat...