Library History Today Blog: Libraries of Metropolitan Toronto (1960) by Ralph Shaw

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 township of North York, chose Dr. Ralph Shaw, Rutgers University, New Jersey, to bring American-style library planning to Ontario. He began his work in 1959 and published his report in the following year in May.

Dr. Shaw’s report did two significant things: it set a better standard for social science research in Canadian library surveys and, more importantly, revealed the disparity in library service across Metro’s thirteen library authorities for books, reference, personnel, and financial support. Shaw made fifteen recommendations to improve integration and standards of service, the principle ones being:
▪ establishment of a Metropolitan Library Board to coordinate agreed upon activities and report to the Metro Council;
▪ no amalgamation or consolidation of local boards into a single system;
▪ funding by a metropolitan board for services necessary for all citizens in the greater region, that is, reference collections and information service;
▪ provision for centralized cataloguing and card preparation for all libraries operated by the proposed metro board;
▪ priority for the development of regional branches of 100,000 volumes with specialized staff;
▪ priority development of neighbourhood branches for children’s services and adult recreational and general reading with bookmobile services;
▪ Toronto Public Library (TPL) to merge its reference and circulation departments into a single department with subject specialization and relocate from College Street to a new building for use by all metro residents; and
▪ a metro-wide use of a single card for all citizens.
The most important recommendation, a metropolitan board, would prove difficult despite the advice that there should be no amalgamation of local boards.

Dr. Shaw rejected the idea of having TPL serve as a central bibliographic and reference resource for all Ontario. This concept, the heart of a ‘Provincial Library’ promoted by many librarians and the Ontario Library Association in the 1950s, had proved to be elusive and unattainable over the years. Further, he advised that the administrative separation of TPL’s children’s services should be discontinued, especially in branches. The management of libraries in schools for students by TPL also was an awkward arrangement. Shaw reported that services for schoolchildren and young adults varied throughout the region and required new delivery approaches. He judged technical services in all libraries to be slower and more expensive than necessary. A metro board would provide this service more effectively.

When the final report came to Metro Council in 1960, Frederick Gardiner, the Metro chair, asked Dr. Shaw how services compared to American cities. The surveyor replied that Metro’s demand was “explosive.” Later in the year, the Toronto Board of Education appointed Leonard Freiser as chief librarian and established the Toronto Education Centre to support the goal of equipping schools with their own libraries. A Globe and Mail editorial on 11 January 1962 approved: “It must be observed only with surprise that this policy has not been in effect for decades past.”

To implement the Shaw report, Metro Council set up a Special Committee chaired by Richard Stanbury in July 1960. The federated approach of centralized Metro funding for standard services and continuance of local municipal autonomy had merits. However, because some library boards lagged behind general Canadian standards, coordinated development and tax-based financing from Metro councillors were complex issues to overcome. As early as June 8th 1960, the Toronto Star had observed: “After reading Dr. Shaw’s report, the immediate reaction of Toronto politicians will be to call for an end to the free-loading of many of the smaller municipalities.” By the autumn of 1960, the Special Committee was receiving briefs, not all supportive of Dr. Shaw’s conclusions, for example, the Metro Separate School Board felt providing libraries in every school was an expensive option.

When Stanbury’s committee reported to Metro Council in July 1961, it proposed the creation of a 30-member Metro-appointed library board, funding for a network of district libraries in Greater Toronto, grants to local library boards to equalize service, and payments for the operation and construction of TPL’s reference library. However, Metro Council balked at providing money without an upper-tier board controlling expenditures. The chair, Frederick Gardiner, declared, “It is either unification of the area library boards or nothing.” When the Special Committee’s effort came forward at Council later in November 1961, its report was adopted with an amendment to form a regional board. Nevertheless, this action had the effect of stalling efforts to create one because there was no unanimity on the issue.

Although the idea of a metro board did not take immediate hold, the Ontario government intervended at this point by appointing H. Carl Goldenberg to head a review on Toronto municipal governance in June 1963. His Report of the Royal Commission on Metropolitan Toronto received some library briefs in May 1964, primarily from TPL. Goldenberg’s final report reaffirmed the need for a Metro library board. It would be composed of nine members—two Metro Council appointees, five members from local area boards, and two from Toronto school boards. The report also concluded that 13 municipalities would be reduced to 6—Toronto, Etobicoke, North York, Scarborough, York, and East York. The result of this amalgamation process blended six independent libraries into a unique upper-tier regional structure in which trustees looked to the Metro Council, or the potential ‘regional’ library board, to play the central role in planning and provision of reference services.

The Shaw report was an influential guide to Toronto library development during the first half of the sixties. The creation of a new central reference library, new district library buildings, and the development of school libraries by the boards of education were apparent changes that could be traced to the pages of Libraries of Metropolitan Toronto. There was a sense that the concept of a Toronto-centred ‘Provincial Library,’ as it had existed in the 1950s, was consigned to history.

Later, in the 1970s, when TPL found its neighbourhood branch libraries needed revitalization, it was still wedded to a policy of creating larger district branches, a legacy from the 1960 Shaw report. Also, TPL was more inclined to work on studies about its own system goals, internal management, and local planning projects within city limits. There was more interest in inner-city issues than metro-wide library activities. Nevertheless, despite opposition, a world-class regional reference library opened in 1977. Two decades later, in 1998, the six metro municipalities were amalgamated into one Toronto entity. The evolution of library centralization, first envisaged in the late 1950s when there were thirteen library boards, had finally come about.