Library History Today Blog

Ontario Public Libraries: The Provincial Role in a Triad of Responsibilities. The Report of the Ontario Public Libraries Programme Review for the Minister of Citizenship and Culture . Toronto: Ministry of Citizenship and Culture, 1982. Executive Co-Ordinator, Peter J. Bassnett. Tables and appendices; xxxiii, 318 pp. In September 1980, Ontario’s Minister of Culture and Recreation (MCR), Reuben Baetz, met with the Ontario Public Library Council (OPLC) to announce a two-year Public Libraries Programme Review (OPLPR). Scarborough’s chief librarian, Peter Bassnett, would be the director and work with a small intermediary group at the outset to plan the review process. Since 1975 he had been chief librarian at Scarborough. Before this appointment, he had managed systems at North York and worked in the UK for many years. The Minister believed a positive approach with abundant consultation would improve the delivery of library services throughout Ontario. The 1970s had been a time of controver...

Libraries of Metropolitan Toronto: A Study of Library Service Prepared for the Library Trustees’ Council of Toronto and District . By Ralph Robert Shaw. Toronto: Library Trustees’ Council of Toronto and District, 1960. Illustrated, pp. 98. In the late 1950s, there were thirteen library boards serving the metropolitan area of Toronto. One board, Toronto, served 658,000 people. Twelve adjacent boards served 742,000. More centralized regional service for police and other area concerns had formed after the creation of a Metropolitan government in 1953 through a provincial act. A few years later, in November 1958, the Metro Council authorized a group of trustees, the Council of Library Trustees of Toronto and District, first formed in 1954, to prepare a detailed survey of the thirteen area municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto. The Council believed systematic coordination was the most logical way to achieve satisfactory area-wide service. The trustees, led by Richard Stanbury from the town...