Before the Second World War, there was only one standalone university library building in the Canadian west. The University of British Columbia library opened in 1925 on the Point Grey campus in Vancouver under the direction of John Ridington. However, with the post-1945 increase in student numbers, which included returning war veterans, overcrowding in three Prairie universities led to development plans that included the transfer and consolidation of library collections from various academic buildings into a separate, central library structure. University collections had grown incrementally across each campus, and at mid-century, Manitoba held almost 250,000 volumes, Saskatchewan about 125,000, and Alberta almost 150,000. These were relatively large holdings in a Canadian context and were comparable to academic libraries of a similar size in Ontario, such as Queen’s or Western, which had erected buildings in the interwar years, the Douglas (1924) and Lawson (1934) libraries. With the increasing pressure to develop research collections and upgrade library operations, the 1950s proved to be a busy decade for university construction across Canada marked by extensions to existing libraries and the opening of new ones.
Rutherford Library, University of Alberta, 1951
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| Rutherford Library, University of Alberta, 1951 |
Rutherford Library at the University of Alberta opened on May 15, 1951, after delays in planning and shortages of construction materials. The library was named after the former Premier of Alberta, Alexander Cameron Rutherford. It was designed by the firm Mathers and Haldenby of Toronto incorporating modified elements of the English Renaissance (also known as Georgian Revival) architectural style. This style is characterized by symmetrical lines, proportion, panel ceilings, and detailing such as window pediments, quoins, and elegant furnished interiors. Rutherford was a handsome four-storey structure of rose-colored brick with white limestone trim. The library’s exterior styling blended seamlessly with older campus buildings, which featured the Collegiate Gothic style.
The chief librarian, Marjorie Sherlock (1945–55), who actively assisted with its planning, rightfully declared, “The Rutherford Library is a beautiful building.” Indeed, Rutherford was an impressive and inviting environment for students and staff alike. The walls of the entrance halls and the main staircases were faced with polished Tyndall limestone from Manitoba and Italian marble. The staircases featured marble treads and risers, accompanied by stair rails and banisters of bronze. Painting, sculpture and art objects were an integral part of the building. The two-storey main reading room displayed oak panelling, Empire Green walls, dark walnut furniture, and red leather chairs. Its entrance was dominated by an extensive mural by Henry G. Glyde depicting his personal interpretation of Alberta’s early ‘pioneer’ colonial history near Fort Edmonton, which critics now consider demeaning in its depiction of relations between Indigenous peoples, settlers, and traders.
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| Henry George Glyde mural, Alberta History, 1951 |
Although Rutherford’s architectural style and interior decoration were retrospective, the design plans featured a relatively functional layout on each floor with separate areas and some modern features, such as an electric elevator that delivered books from the closed stacks to the main circulation desk for users. The entire design allowed for the centralization of collections, such as the law library on the first floor, and separate divisions for library services: acquisitions, cataloguing, circulation control, and reference service. Marjorie Sherlock planned to reorganize the library classification using the Library of Congress system, and, for this purpose, she hired Bruce Braden Peel, who became the chief librarian after her marriage and retirement in 1955.
The chief librarian and university administrators were justly proud of the new library, which cost approximately $2,000,000 to provide about 85,000 sq. ft. on four floors. The lower level housed space for the university extension library, a reading room for applied science students, a projection room, a smoking room, and areas for staff. On the ground floor, there was a law library, a reserve reading room for 120 readers, and closed reserve stacks for about 10,000 volumes for study purposes. A reading room for medical students and a staff area for processing periodicals occupied the rest of the main floor space. The second floor offered a main reading room, seating for 240 students, and a small reference desk. This floor also housed the library catalogue and periodical collection. Because the main library stack areas were only open to teaching staff, graduate and honours students, requested books by the majority of users were issued in the central area at the main circulation desk. The top floor was primarily devoted to seminar and conference rooms.
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| Rutherford Library main delivery desk, second floor, c. 1951 |
Rutherford was an outstanding addition to the University of Alberta campus. But, like all libraries, over time, increasing collections, staffing, and university enrollment led to a decision about its future. Library expansion was required in Alberta, but its growth necessitated the construction of a new library, the D.E. Cameron Library, which opened in 1964. Rutherford was reorganized to provide a larger law library on the upper floor, an undergraduate library on the second floor, and more spaces for special collections, rare books, and government documents. There were further changes, of course, notably the addition of a free-standing library built adjacent to it in 1973. Half a century later, in 2025, a prominent feature of ‘Rutherford South’ (as the old library came to be known) is the Bruce Peel Special Collections. The Rutherford Library combined an engaging elegance with a utilitarian arrangement of rooms, enduring qualities which continue to fulfill the needs of Alberta’s students to this day.
University of Manitoba Library, 1953, the Elizabeth Dafoe Library
![University of Manitoba [Dafoe] Library, 1950s](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFF9fnxL4ExcH7vWuvCsomsALg7yLLbpG8AvfFWaCP4IVUz2N2lRzLNgpRYtF3f53R6pDUeS_jpntI_ZMq3MnHloUqKxmJMNsRsSZp5PCkuTFH9S1T_rZq9xgyawQosA3t25KG4ATxOPlNDZvPxmgqVgA6zBybkeVbFQ4xgLp1nXWD0AhMYWZ/w380-h254/Elizabeth%20Dafoe%20Library%20nd%20(c.1950s).jpg "University of Manitoba [Dafoe] Library, 1950s") |
| University of Manitoba Library, 1950s |
When the University of Manitoba’s new campus library officially opened on September 26, 1953, it announced the arrival of Modernist architectural styling and functional planning for university libraries on the prairies. In place of the traditional collegiate-style campus buildings, the library featured an attractive exterior of Tyndall Stone, a cream coloured limestone from a Manitoba quarry, and floor-to-ceiling walls of glass. Elizabeth Dafoe, the chief librarian (1937–60), helped oversee the design and construction of the new library. When she wrote about plans for the library several years later, in 1959, she said: “Every library, however, has two large areas of service: first, Public Service (Circulation and Reference), and second, Technical Service (the acquisition and preparation of materials for use).” She believed the effectiveness of the first was dependent to a considerable degree on the efficiency of the second.
Further, “Because the funds for our disposal were insufficient to erect a building ample enough to serve the university adequately for many years to come, we knew that we must have as few permanent partitions as possible and that not only the stack rooms but other areas as well must be as flexible as seemed practicable. Free-standing stacks and stack partitions between some rooms seemed to be the answer.” Indeed, the new library, costing about $900,000, was not only economically practicable but also consolidated smaller collections from across the university, thus allowing for better student and faculty use. The south end of the building provided an exhibition space and a small 80-seat theatre for films.
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| The Buffalo Hunt by William A. McCloy, 1953 |
The design architect for the library was David F. Thordarson, a young Manitoba graduate (1949) with a BA in Architecture. He had joined the Winnipeg firm, Green Blankstein Russell, which oversaw completion of the building and its Modernist rectilinear styling. The building prioritized functionality over ornamentation by utilizing glass partitions to accentuate the open floor plans and large windows that revealed interior functions from the outside. The entrance floor located at ground level featured an open lobby, a readers’ lounge, an exhibition room, a theatre, a projection room, and a small kitchen for social events. One notable feature, a colourful, dreamlike mural by William Ashbly McCloy, was designed to reside at the front entrance: it depicted three flying bison, one of which was the Great Bull Bison with his head turned back to a flying hunter who was in rapid pursuit in the sky over the Red River.
The library proper spanned three floors (one below the entrance level) with separate areas for technical services, periodicals, and a bibliography room, as well as the special Icelandic collection with adjoining stack rooms. In sum, the small library was both graceful and functional, and readily accessible in the centre of campus. The main circulation desk was on the second floor, with the reserve reference desk downstairs. Honours students and graduates were assigned carrels on each of the three floors of stacks. Faculty researchers were provided with sixteen larger cubicles in a separate room. Library shelving held 160,000 volumes with special sections for maps, the valuable Icelandic collection and periodicals. Rare books were assigned their own room.
In 1961, in recognition of Elizabeth Dafoe’s long tenure, the library was renamed in her honour. As student numbers grew throughout the sixties, the library became overcrowded. Plans were made to enlarge it. Finally, after a quarter century, in 1978, an addition by Green Blankenstein Russell was made to the northwest section of the library.
Murray Memorial Library, University of Saskatchewan, 1956
The third Prairie library, the Murray Memorial Library, named after the University's first president, Walter C. Murray, was built between 1954–56 at a cost of approximately $1,500,000, including furnishings and equipment. When it officially opened on November 30, 1956, the University President, Walter P. Thompson, declared it was “Another dream come true.” The Murray Library was a central building designed to house many university collections previously dispersed among six branch libraries. The basic open design brought books and readers together in a close relationship.
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| Murray Memorial Library, Nov. 1956 |
The library was well-planned in the Mid-Century Modern architectural style by the architect, Henry Kenneth Black, from Regina, and the librarian David C. Appelt, a native New Zealander who had become the head librarian in 1946. Kiyoshi Izumi, a young aspiring architect, served as the Ken Black’s representative and Keyes Metcalf, Director of University Libraries at Harvard, was a consultant on the project. Murray Memorial displayed an austere and unimposing rectangular exterior
with a flat roof, uniform fenestration, and entry at grade level. Building materials included structural steel or reinforced concrete, granite at the entrance and Tyndall stone as a wall cladding and window trim.
It was also an unabashed modular building, displaying a significant interior change in planning for Canadian academic libraries. In modular planning the floor space is divided into equal rectangles: the Murray library was designed on 4 ft. x 6 in. scheme to accommodate its approximately 100,000 sq. ft. on four floors. This scheme enabled adequate floor-loading capacities, uniform ceiling heights, and provided for mechanical and electrical systems for air and lighting. Although the new building style lacked visual appeal, indeed it could be said to be boring, both H.K. Black and D.C. Appelt recognized that the international-style structure was well-suited to functional library requirements, future reorganization, and expansion. It was economical too.
Early decisions made in the planning stage determined the layout for Murray Memorial:
1. It would have open stack access with circulation control at the building exit.
2. Closed reserve collections would continue.
3. There would be no subject divisions.
4. Branch libraries would continue on a reduced scale. Research materials (except for Medicine) would be in the main library.
5. The Provincial Saskatchewan Archives would be located on the lower level.
6. There would be temporary space for the College of Law and the Law Library on the second floor.
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| Murray Memorial Library first floor plan, entrance at right | | |
On the first floor, the circulation desk was situated at the entrance/exit with the catalogue adjacent to it. Further into the interior was a large, readily accessible reference room which featured a service desk that provided improved assistance. Book stacks were located on the second and third floors. The reserve reading room was on the lower level. The Murray Memorial Library served the university for two decades before undergoing extensive renovation in the 1970s during which a six-floor south wing was added to accommodate growth.
Seven decades later, in the 21st century ‘information age’ and the era of the ‘digital library,’ the services of the Rutherford, Dafoe, and Murray libraries continue to satisfy campus needs and exemplify the diverse choices librarians and architects made in the 1950s to address contemporary issues with flexible building designs that successfully transitioned to the future.
Further Reading:
Elizabeth Dafoe, “A University Library [Manitoba].” Journal of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada 36, no. 4 (1959): 106.
Bruce Braden Peel’s 1979 history of the University of Alberta is available at the
Internet Archive.
David Appelt’s report on planning for the Murray Memorial Library: “University of Saskatchewan Library, Saskatoon,” is in Proceedings of the Meetings at Midwinter ALA Conference, Chicago, Illinois, February 1 and 2, 1953, ed. by Donald C. Davidson. Chicago: Association of College and Research Libraries, 1953, pp. 8–18.
![University of Manitoba [Dafoe] Library, 1950s](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifFF9fnxL4ExcH7vWuvCsomsALg7yLLbpG8AvfFWaCP4IVUz2N2lRzLNgpRYtF3f53R6pDUeS_jpntI_ZMq3MnHloUqKxmJMNsRsSZp5PCkuTFH9S1T_rZq9xgyawQosA3t25KG4ATxOPlNDZvPxmgqVgA6zBybkeVbFQ4xgLp1nXWD0AhMYWZ/s1196/Elizabeth%20Dafoe%20Library%20nd%20(c.1950s).jpg "University of Manitoba [Dafoe] Library, 1950s")
