Project Progress: A Study of Canadian Public Libraries, 1981

Project Progress: A Study of Canadian Public Libraries. Prepared for the Canadian Library Association and its division the Canadian Association of Public Libraries by Urban Dimensions Group Inc. Toronto, Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, January 1981. 120 p., ill. Issued in French as: Projet progrès.

My review first appeared with shorter text in Canadian Public Administration vol. 26, no. 2 (June 1983): 315-316 as follows.

. . . . .

In 1979 the Toronto-based Urban Dimensions Group Inc. was commissioned by the Canadian Library Association to study problems confronting public libraries in Canada. The group’s report, Project Progress, identifies a number of issues affecting libraries in a national context, and offers practical data as well as recommendations to respond to these challenges. Implicit in this survey is a muted call to action. Yet, in the introduction, the CLA Steering Committee members offer a guarded forecast: “the future is before us.”

There are good reasons to be wary. Consider a few results from the 1979/80 general survey of libraries presented in chapter three:
51.8 per cent of service points are open less than 20 hours a week
38.4 per cent of service points circulate less than 50,000 items per year
89.3 per cent of service points lent less than 250 books a year to other libraries
64.3 per cent of service points operate on less than $50,000 annually
77.1 per cent of libraries employ no full-time qualified public service librarians
94.6 per cent of libraries employ no full-time qualified librarians in technical services
84.0 per cent of libraries employ no administrative or “other” librarians
46.0 per cent of service points are less than 1,000 sq. ft. in size
41.3 per cent of service points hold less than 10,000 volumes
19.0 per cent of service points have no catalogue access to their collections
32.0 per cent of service points offer children’s programs/story hours
Is this progress? It is disquieting to learn that eighty years after the introduction of children’s programming in Canada less than one-third of our libraries provide story hours. Why? The members of the research team pass over this - and other alarming findings – without much discussion. Perhaps their own doubts about the potential for corrective measures are too firmly established to give palliative comments.

The bleak statistics in Project Progress lead up to a discussion of library cooperation and cost-benefit analysis at the end of chapter three. Project Progress rightfully notes that the existing volume of inter-loan traffic is low, that present national bibliographic information services are “unwieldy,” and that only “little growth or innovation” has occurred since 1972. Given some of the results of the survey above, it is doubtful whether cooperative efforts at resource-sharing will become a widespread activity outside larger urban and suburban communities.

Chapters four and six analyze the education, utilization, training and attitudes of library workers. Project Progress reports that the unionization of libraries is viewed by workers as having little impact. Indeed, the issue of professional status of librarians in relation to management has not been addressed adequately. Project Progress also identifies a possible weakness in library education concerning use of technology to improve services. No doubt library educators will disagree on this issue.

Two further chapters study usage of libraries by the public which incorporate some results appearing in previous surveys made by the federal government in 1975 and 1978. It is noteworthy that a full century after the introduction of free tax-based library services, the question, “Would you favour taxes being increased to cover necessary costs?’ instead of cutbacks, elicits a negative reply from 45 per cent of the respondents (2 per cent greater than those favouring tax increases). Little wonder Project Progress recommends a more explicit market orientation and effective performance measures to support budget requests! Further, it is revealed that people believe libraries are more important to the community (61.5 per cent) than they are personally (42 per cent). The irony is that most professional librarians and staff would agree that they exist to serve the needs of individual users, not communities. Thus it is no surprise that the 1981 Ontario Library Association conference theme was “Libraries Celebrate the Individual.”

Project Progress is the most important single document on public libraries to appear since Libraries in Canada; A Study of Library Conditions and Needs, the report of an inquiry chaired by John Ridington in 1933. In my view, most recommendations offer a sensible basis for further study and action. Nevertheless, there is an essential ingredient missing. Nowhere in Project Progress is there any serious analysis of the political process engulfing public libraries. Although all levels of government formulate policies, the financial realities impinging upon the majority of local municipal units limits the scope for leadership and innovation. The major policy actors – library trustees, librarians, school boards, councillors, interest groups such as library associations, and provincial civil servants – are largely concerned with administrative/internal decisions. In this milieu, political policy-making languishes. An opportunity has been missed to explore the political world of public libraries where detailed administrative expertise is the road to advancement for librarians, and where trustees (and their libraries) suffer low visibility. Because the by-word for action in the fragmented library community is unity, changes are exceedingly difficult to achieve.

Project Progress does close with the conviction that improvements can be implemented by good planning, basically through national or provincial agencies such as CLA. This is a step forward in raising political awareness. Fifty years ago the Ridington report sincerely believed that there was “nothing the national government can do” to create and maintain a national library at Ottawa. Clearly since then public libraries have come to recognize that meaningful rewards can be attained through moderate political action. But constructive changes continue to follow a sporadic course, because little is known about the political environment of libraries.

Postscript

In the mid-1970s, the Canadian Association of Public Libraries decided to conduct a study to ascertain the public library’s effectiveness and provide future recommendations. Unfortunately, this ambitious undertaking eventually raised less than half of the original projected financial goal after five years. CAPL, a small 1,000 plus member section of the Canadian Library Association, hoped a national study would boost decision-making, serve as a basic footprint for planning, and stimulate librarians/libraries to focus on changing societal conditions (especially the importance of information provision). The first three chapters centred on a brief introduction, an explanation of the data and methods, and a description of public library activity. Urban Dimensions examined 1,178 completed library questionnaires from 2,426 service points, conducted 90 personal interviews of library workers from 51 libraries, interviewed 200 people from the general public by telephone, and met with 18 decision-makers. The report concluded with twelve general recommendations, some of which did not appear to come from the data presented in tables and graphs.

The information presented was fairly general and the findings, which blurred the distinction between a library as an organization and the totality of service points. As a result, there was some discouraging reporting on the availability of library services. The report was released at the CLA national conference in Hamilton in June 1981 with some fanfare that future discussions about its recommendations would lead to new directions. However, this prospect did not materialize. A year later, at Saskatoon in 1982, CLA’s sessions on the report made little headway because conference-goers disagreed with some findings, such as the recommendation for professional librarians to form a national body equivalent to a licensing body. Many administrators surmised that the implementation of major recommendations would necessitate local initiatives which might vary across the country. The development of national strategies in a diverse public library community required financial resources that CLA, public libraries, related firms, and foundations were unable to provide. In retrospect, Project Progress was a valiant attempt to assess current strengths and weaknesses and offer guidance for future action; however, the report relied on subsequent activity at the community level and coordinated national leadership which CLA and leading library associations were not able to undertake.

Three additional important reviews:

Jean Tague and Sam D. Neill, “A Critical Review of Project Progress,” Ontario Library Review 66 no. 2 (June 1982): 84-87.

 Katherine H. Packer, compiler, “Project Progress: A Review,” Canadian Library Journal 39 no. 3 (June 1982): 129-133; with a “Reply to the Review” by the researchers, E. B. Harvey, Lorna Marsden, and Anne Woodsworth, 135-137.

S.D. Neill, “Project Progress and Professional Library Education  –  Continuing Education, Management Skills, Management Statistics,” OLA Expression 3 no. 4 (Winter 1982): 19-21.

D’obscurantisme et de Lumières: La Bibliothèque Publique au Québec by François Séguin (2016)

D’obscurantisme et de Lumières: La Bibliothèque Publique au Québec, des Origines au 21e Siècle by François Séguin. Montréal: Éditions Hurtubise (Cahiers du Québec, no. 168), 2016.

The presence of libraries in Quebec stretches back almost four centuries; their history is complex and plentiful. Now, François Séguin has composed a comprehensive and noteworthy history of libraries used by the public on various terms from the 18th to the 21st century. The author worked for many years in Montreal’s public libraries and has witnessed firsthand the developments over the last forty years. As a historical work, the focus is primarily on the era before 1950; the progress made after the Quiet Revolution is dealt with more briefly. The title reveals the fundamental theme of enlightened progress impeded by conservative elements opposed to the democratization of library access to public reading and knowledge. The author explores why predominantly French-speaking Quebec has undergone an ideological/political library struggle that was not present in other Canadian regions. Yet, there are similarities with English-speaking counterparts: like other North American library developments, the manifestations of the “public library” in Quebec has passed through periods of private, semi-private, and tax-supported services that ranged from the exclusionary use of shareholder/subscribers to municipal entities usually free to local/regional residents. It is this eventful passage that will fascinate many readers.

A summary of the book’s twelve chapters must, of course, not do justice to the depth of Séguin’s scholarship and his ability to provide an appealing narrative based on the history of individual libraries. An introductory chapter briefly outlines private and institutional libraries in New France before the British conquest in 1760. The establishment in 1632 of the Bibliothèque du Collège des Jésuites was a significant highlight of the French regime, but it was not for public use. The concept of public use and literacy growth was demonstrated by the establishment of small subscription libraries, commercial lending libraries, reading rooms, newsrooms, and mechanics’ institutes (instituts d’artisans) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The appeal of these organizations to different clienteles is outlined in the following three chapters, 2 to 4. These libraries were utilized mainly by urban elites, professionals, and people engaged in business. Before the province of Lower Canada was united with Upper Canada to form one British colony in 1841, the major points of interest were:
1764 — Germain Langlois forms a commercial circulating library at Quebec;
1779 — British Governor Haldimand founds the bilingual Bibliothèque de Québec/The Quebec Library;
1828 — The establishment of Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal (now the Atwater Library).

At this point, 1841-42, an extraordinary French visitor from the United States, Alexandre Vattemare, an exponent of free public libraries and the universal distribution of reading through exchanges of books, arrived (chapter 5). In Montreal and Quebec, he proposed the union of local societies into one institute that would form a library, museum, and exhibition halls bolstered by his exchange plan. Séguin devotes an entire chapter to his efforts which did not materialize but ultimately led to the formation of the Institut Canadien in 1844 in Montreal. The intellectual ferment of the early 1840s also stimulated a response from conservatives anxious to block liberal, secular ideas that might threaten the conservative elite and the Catholic Church’s authority. Two chapters (6 and 7) explain the problems encountered by the Institutes Canadiennes in Montreal and Quebec and the development of the parish library (bibliothèque paroissiale) by Catholic authorities. For a century to come, the parish libraries were open for readers, but their organizers placed priority on a rigid system of morality that taught acceptance and passivity in social and political matters. Orthodoxy was more important than the liberal sponsorship of public lectures, debates, and circulating collections that the institutes promoted. The opening of the “Œuvre des Bons Livres” in Montreal by the Sulpician Order in 1842 signalled decades of conflict between the two philosophies while the church succeeded in establishing its hegemony over public reading and defeating the philosophy of the two institutes. The Catholic hierarchy was determined to stiffle the influence of “bad books” by providing “good” ones.

After Confederation in 1867, the Sulpicians began to play an important role in championing publicly authorized reading (chapter 8), notwithstanding the proclamation of an 1890 provincial Act (seldom used) that authorized municipal corporations to maintain public libraries. When Montreal’s civic authorities failed to secure funding from Andrew Carnegie to establish a public library, the Sulpicians founded the famous Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice for the public and scholars. Eventually, in 1967, its collections became part of the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec and later, after 2002, the provincial government integrated its resources with the Grande Bibliothèque, one of the busiest public libraries in Canada. The formation of the “GB” owed much to the sponsorship of Lucien Bouchard, the leader of the Premier of Quebec between 1996-2001. This chapter of D’obscurantisme et de Lumières underscores the author’s general theme and how social and political elements impact public library development.

The Saint-Suplice Library was a remarkable beaux-arts style building, but it was followed shortly afterwards by an equally imposing edifice in the same architectural style, the Bibliothèque municipale de Montréal, which opened in 1917. By the turn of the twentieth century, there were gradual social, economic, and political forces underway that would eventually undermine the dominance of the parish library in local communities as well as the authority of the clergy in determining collection building. English-speaking minorities, especially in major urban centres and the Eastern Townships, evoked the rhetoric of the Anglo-American public library movement, which embraced municipal control and free access at the entry point for public libraries. Séguin charts the course of this inexorable movement in three chapters, 9 to 11. In Montreal, the Fraser Institute, Quebec’s first free library for the public, opened in 1885, followed by anglophone public libraries in Sherbrooke, Knowlton, and Haskell. Westmount opened another free library in 1899. Even a small francophone municipality, Sainte-Cunégonde, founded a free library immediately before Montreal annexed it in 1905. However, Montreal’s municipal public library on Sherbrooke Street grew slowly because financial resources from the city for collections and staffing were in short supply during its first half-century of existence. Children’s work and a film service were not introduced until a quarter-century after the library opened. After the Second World War, the forces of urbanization, secularization, and the unique national identity of Quebec began to change the province’s political culture and introduced a new important player in public library development--the provincial government.

The book’s final chapter (11) deals with the growth of public libraries after 1959 when the province passed a modest provincial law for public libraries authorizing municipal establishment and control of library services. Regional libraries were planned and formed, professional staffing was encouraged, improved revenues from local government were secured, new branch libraries opened, and new library associations formed that emphasized social issues, such as intellectual freedom. In the early 1980s, Denis Vaugeois, the Minister of Cultural Affairs, emphasized library development with a five-year development plan that improved infrastructure and services substantially. Yet, when the province rescinded the outdated 1959 library legislation, no new specific library act was enacted. Instead, the province moved to establish the Grande Bibliotheque in Montreal, an outstanding circulating and reference library for all Québécois. However, lacking a general law, basic principles, especially free access to resources, remains a legacy of flawed, incremental plans . The current general legislation, one concerning the Ministry of Culture and Communications, has governed public libraries since 1992. Séguin entitles his chapter on the twentieth century “un laborieux cheminement,” an appropriate designation.

D’obscurantisme et de Lumières is a rich narrative firmly focused on the institutional development of libraries and their public value in terms of access to books, the intellectual or recreational content of collections, and a broad range of formats that have challenged the dominance of print after the first decades of the 20th century and the popularity of radio. Séguin uses many documentary sources to illustrate his chapters: quotes from bishops, politicians, and librarians; newspapers such as Le Devoir; personal correspondence; municipal debates; government reports; and, of course, library reports. Influential American practices, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification and the evolution of library science education in degree-granting universities, are evident. But several decisive post-1950 changes are not in evidence. There is little in the book about societal changes, for example, the transformation to electronic-virtual-digital libraries, the “Information Highway” of the 1990s, gender roles (especially the predominance of males in administration), the image of the library or librarians in films or television that reflected societal views, or the effects of library automation and efforts to network libraries for collective usage. Perhaps a few in-depth case studies of major libraries outside Montreal might have been used to illustrate library progress. For example: more emphasis on how the Institut Canadien de Québec, which initially accepted the church’s authority on morality and orthodoxy, then evolved in a singular way into Quebec City’s public library after municipal control in 1887; or, how the regionalization of rural library service proceeded after 1960. The use of informative sidebars on Montreal’s two library schools, influential librarians (e.g., Ægidius Fauteux), children’s libraries, or library associations such as ASTED or the l'Association des bibliothécaires du Québec/Quebec Library Association could advance our knowledge of library progress.

However, these observations in no way diminish the significance of D’obscurantisme et de Lumières as it stands. François Séguin has made a valuable contribution to Canadian library history and allows his readership to understand better the cultural forces that determined library development and the course of librarianship in Quebec. The issues I pose simply suggest that a second book by the author employing various contemporary themes would be equally helpful for those eager to know more about Quebec’s remarkable library history.

Two Fraser Valley films: The Fraser Valley Public Library (c. 1932) and The Library on Wheels (1945)

Fraser Valley Public Library, 16 mm., b & w., 12 minutes, c. 1932. British Columbia Public Library Commission. Photographed and produced by H. Norman Lidster.

The Library on Wheels, 16 mm., b & w, 14 minutes, 1945. National Film Board of Canada. Produced by Gudrun Parker and directed by Bill MacDonald.

The use of 16 mm. films for the promotion of Canadian library services began in earnest with Hugh Norman Lidster during the Great Depression. He was a practicing lawyer, a councillor, and a library board member in New Westminster, BC. In 1929, Lidster was appointed to the British Columbia Public Library Commission, a position to which he made many contributions until his retirement in 1966. In addition to his local and provincial contributions, he was active on the national level and received an Award of Merit from the Canadian Library Trustees’ Association in 1962. Lidster became an avid “home movie” enthusiast in the twenties and bought his first movie camera in 1930. Within a few years, he began to document local events and to promote the new Fraser Valley library regional demonstration (FVRL) funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1930-34. At some point, likely in 1932, Lidster decided to film the library’s new book van on its travels. Fortunately, his work has been preserved; consequently, we can view many of this region’s early community libraries, deposit stations, schools, its rural landscape and mountains, gravel roads, and even the old Agassiz-Rosedale ferry, which was replaced by a bridge in 1956.
 
Lidster’s film is essentially a promotional film to showcase the Carnegie demonstration. It shows library service in the Fraser Valley and follows the book van on its routes from community to community. The film depicts various aspects of the library service and perhaps shows a brief closeup of the energetic director-librarian, Helen Gordon Stewart, at the outset. For today’s viewers, the smaller Canadian communities of the Fraser in the early 1930s appear by 21st century standards to be underdeveloped in terms of technology and economics. Even a decade and a half later, when the Library on Wheels was produced, this same impression prevails. Still, we must consider that Canada was less urbanized at this time: the valley’s principal towns were Abbotsford and Chilliwack, each with about 1,000 population or less. Forestry and farming were major sectors in a resource-based economy. Canada’s economy was growing on an international basis, and its gross domestic product ranked with countries such as Argentina, Poland, and Spain. Postwar economic growth in commercial industry, trade, services, and tourism would, of course, introduce many changes. Today the FVRL serves about 700,000 people.

Fraser Valley book van exiting ferry, ca 1932

 

Serving the rural population in BC was a key goal of the Provincial Public Library Commission Lidster served on. An important BC survey conducted in 1927 recommended that larger administrative library districts based on cooperation between municipalities and school districts would best serve rural communities that could not afford to fund local libraries for improving standards. Fortunately, the Carnegie Corporation of New York awarded a grant of $100,000 to operate a multi-year library project, which commenced in 1930. A notable feature of this project was its book van that traversed an area of approximately 1,000 square miles. The van made regular stops at small community association libraries, filling stations, grocery stores, and country corners. At each stop, it displayed books on its exterior covered shelves for people, young and old, to browse.

 
The experiment in regional library service proved to be quite successful. At its conclusion each community voted whether to continue the regional library with local taxes. Twenty municipalities agreed to do so, and in autumn 1934, a union library was formally established at a ceremony held in Chilliwack. The provincial government provided additional funding to encourage growth.

Eager readers at a book stop, Library on Wheels, 1945

 

The FVRL was a successful model. Two more regional libraries were formed in BC, one on Vancouver Island and another in the Okanagan Valley, before Gudrun Parker, a Winnipeg born film producer who began her career with the National Film Board (NFB) during the Second World War, teamed up with the NFB director Bill MacDonald. He was a talented writer with a particular interest in conservation and outdoor sports, especially fishing. Together, they made an enjoyable reprise of the book van’s travels in the Fraser throughout four weeks in 1944. The NFB crew interacted with many residents during filming. Later, MacDonald recounted: “They took us into their confidence and they told us what they thought of the library and showed us the books they liked to read.” With sound, of course, the Library on Wheels is entertaining because it is also professionally edited. Parker, who eventually would receive the Order of Canada for her body of work in 2005, credited one source of inspiration as Richard Crouch, the chief librarian of London, Ont. Crouch travelled across Canada on a Carnegie grant administered by the Canadian Library Council during the war. He was noted for his advocacy for the role of the “library in the community.” Two years later, in 1947, Parker and Crouch collaborated again, this time to produce the NFB short film, New Chapters, which documented the London library’s cultural and leisure activities in the Forest City. The later film received less promotion and was eclipsed in popularity by yet another bookmobile film of the same year, The Books Drive On, which highlighted libraries and communities in the Ontario county of Huron.

The Library on Wheels proved to be an influential asset for library promoters after WWII. Proponents of regional libraries in the west, especially in Saskatchewan, used the film to establish better rural services linked by newer bookmobiles rather than truck vans. Today, both films still resonate with the spirit of our open country and Canadians’ love of books.

Norman Lidster’s film can be viewed on YouTube here.

 

Watch the NFB’s Library on Wheels on YouTube here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Les bibliothèques canadiennes, 1604-1960 by Antonio Drolet (1965)

Les bibliothèques canadiennes, 1604-1960 by Antonio Drolet. Ottawa: Le Cercle du Livre de France, 1965. 234 p., tables.

Antonio Drolet, n.d.

Antonio Drolet was born in Québec City on July 31, 1904, and studied at the Petit Séminaire de Québec where many young Catholic clerics were educated. He earned his BA at Université Laval in 1925. Eventually,  he chose a career outside religious studies: he became an academic librarian at Laval. He also performed duties as a Secretary to the respected literary critic and rector of Laval, Camille Roy. Later, he organized and directed work at the library in the Faculty of Medicine at Sainte-Foy from 1955-1961. In 1964, Drolet became chief librarian at the Archives of Québec. During his career, he published important works, notably Bibliographie du roman canadien-français 1900–1950 in 1955 and Les Bibliothèques canadiennes 1604–1960 in 1965 along with many scholarly articles on libraries, especially in the vicinity of Quebec City (see below). Drolet died on June 30, 1970.

Antonio Drolet's history of Canadian libraries was a groundbreaking work in Canadian library historiography and owed much to his knowledge of Canadian bibliography and his own scholarly work on libraries and book collections in the province of Quebec. In attempting to encompass the development of our nation's libraries from the arrival of French explorers to the postwar period after 1945, the author was examining an area of research that was, for the most part, a patchwork of regional histories and unsynthesized commentaries. Drolet was largely successful in striving to weld these pieces together in a sweeping historical survey of Canadian library development. More than half a century later, some parts may seem dated or insubstantial due to subsequent research, nevertheless, Les Bibliothèques canadiennes is still a reliable, concise account which blends Drolet's narrative and analysis, notably his portrayal of the considerable influence of the clergy in Quebec's public library development. Drolet was steadfast in his account of the historical ascendancy of public services at a time when Quebec's politics and culture in the 1960s -- the Quiet Revolution -- was fundamentally changing life in Quebec. Drolet seems to be deeply aware of this trend and, as a result, his general work remains an important starting point in historical inquiry, especially for the evolution of libraries in Quebec.

Drolet chose to divide Canada's library chronology into three parts, from (1) the early libraries in the French colony established by Samuel Champlain to the British military victories in the Seven Years' War at Québec City and Montréal (1604-1760), (2) the British colonial period to Confederation, to (3) the entire post-Confederation period (1867-1960) of developing nationhood. These dates mirror the earlier dominance of political history in Canada's past established by Canadian historians in the first part of the 20th century and the ideas that emerged from its colonial experience and the aftermath of Confederation. Of course, Drolet composed his work before the rise of new social history in Canadian universities that involved a variety of studies on urbanism, ethnicity, labour, demographics, regional or societal structures, and more complex patterns of chronology. It was sometimes called "history from below" or "history with the politics left out." This new history used different viewpoints and source materials and did not focus on attempts at a national synthesis. Drolet was composing his narrative at a time when French-language historians at two major universities, Laval and Montreal, were beginning to re-interpret Quebec's history using professional standards to investigate the province's social and cultural development beyond the traditional nationalist emphasis on the survival of francophone culture in a North American setting. Les Bibliothèques canadiennes displays an interest in print culture and book history, areas of study in their own right in relation to the field French-Canadian library history. Drolet's successors who have made authoritative contributions to Quebec's library history, such as Yvan Lamonde, Gilles Gallichan, or Marcel Lajeunesse -- have followed in this tradition of interrelating library history with printing and publishing, the history of books, literacy, reading, and intellectual development. These works reflect the new cultural historiography that became more influential on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1980s, many years after Drolet's publication appeared.

However, Drolet was also writing at a time when institutional and administrative concerns in library history -- the growth of collections, the spread of various types of libraries, or the tenure of chief administrators -- dominated local narratives, especially in American and Canadian English-speaking accounts. Drolet chose to focus on types of libraries and their development -- a typical institutional approach that is less favoured by historians now. His contemporaries writing library history echoed the liberal-democratic premise of practicing librarians and trustees who projected the idea of public libraries financed by municipalities and administered by trustees as a powerful force for literacy and democracy. To some extent, Drolet was not subject to this overarching Anglo-American-Canadian experience because he specialized in the course of Quebec's library development which had resisted this thinking. As he notes, even in 1930 a Liberal Premier of Quebec, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, could state that the content of public libraries posed some threat, especially to youth (p. 173-74). However, while he adhered to the cultural-religious aspects of Quebec's library history, Drolet necessarily was concocting a national interpretation of the historical record emphasizing facts and events that often were institutional, administrative, and political in focus, thus giving weight to the progress of institutional growth.

In his first time frame, Drolet examines the libraries of New France, particularly private libraries of the colonial elite and Catholic religious institutions. The vast majority of private collections were not large and, as he notes, were often devoted to religious works, as were the libraries in churches and seminaries. He covers the entire period as one -- the reader does not get a sense of the growth of libraries in the French regime, perhaps because they were small and a "book culture" with contemporary printing presses and book stores was lacking. For institutional libraries, Drolet drew on his own published work, particularly the Séminaire de Québec (see below) which is still cited by scholars. The most important library in the French colony was the library of the Collège des Jésuites at Québec City which Drolet had published an extensive article on in 1961 (see below). He calculates that there were about 20,000 volumes in about 50 personal collections in New France (p. 25) with prominent French writers, Pascal, Descartes, and Montaigne available to readers (p. 45). He concludes his section on mostly private collections by noting the appearance of libraries for the public in North America, a trend the French colony had not experienced.

The central part of Les Bibliothèques canadiennes (1760-1867) is more successful in providing details that offer a sense of colonial library development including the background of difficulties inherent in Canada's burgeoning book trade, especially in Quebec. Commercial circulating libraries, subscription libraries (which Drolet terms as public, p. 88, because they did not belong to a person and attracted a limited clientele), English language mechanics' institutes and their French counterpart instituts d’artisans, school libraries, parliamentary libraries, professional libraries, public libraries of different types, parish libraries, college and university libraries begin to appear. Drolet examines the size of collections, for example, the Bibliothèque de Québec founded in 1779. The author's interest in parish libraries encouraged by the Catholic Church after 1840 stems from his earlier research (see below) and continues his observations on the importance of religion on library development in his home province. He finds the clergy repeatedly thwarting the development of local or municipal public libraries by acting as a conservative force to actively control social and cultural institutions, especially the foundation of libraries for the public in a general sense ("bibliothèques populaires" p. 135). In two notable cases, the visit of Alexandre Vattemare in 1840-41 which resulted in the founding of the controversial L’Institut canadien de Montréal (1844-80) and the refusal to accept money from Andrew Carnegie's program to build free public library buildings at the beginning of the 20th century, the Catholic ultramontane philosophy prevailed. The development of school libraries under Egerton Ryerson and Jean-Baptiste Meilleur is also highlighted. To illustrate the growth of libraries, there is a chronological table (p. 151-54) of the foundation of many Canadian libraries during this period, perhaps a realization on the author's part that a substantial descriptive history of all library development over one hundred years was not feasible in the early 1960s. Drolet was touching the surface of library history not burrowing deeper to examine the complexities of library formation, investigating the contribution of persons (politicians, trustees, librarians), or identifying general trends or geographic differences that influenced library growth.

In his final section, Drolet moves to a national stage beyond Quebec and Ontario and covers important libraries in ten Canadian provinces. Discussion is necessarily compressed, but it engages the reader with useful information and displays the author's extensive learning and dedication to details. At the same time, the author introduces government, business, school, and academic libraries. Generally, the primacy of private and public library history lessens and types of libraries multiply. In this time frame, as might be expected because he was writing before the influence of new social and cultural history approaches, Drolet remains fixed on an institutional focus, even with library education and the development of librarianship (p. 203-04). As the formation of provincial and national library associations comes into play, he notes the bi-cultural nature of Canadian librarianship: the formation of the Canadian Library Association (still bilingual at the time of Drolet's publication) and L'Association canadienne des bibliothécaires de langue française shortly after the Second World War. There is little opportunity to consider the societal impact of libraries, although the author indicates Quebec's decision to follow the example of Canadian-American public library development in other provinces with the formation of a provincial public library law in 1959.

Les Bibliothèques canadiennes has influenced Quebec authors in the past half-century, in part because Drolet was in tune with the changes of the Quiet Revolution and the need to secularize and reinterpret library history in his home province. Conversely, Drolet's work is seldom cited in English-language publications even though it could easily serve as an introductory handbook. A variety of reasons likely account for this neglect beyond the obvious obstacle of language and its brevity. The book's all-encompassing scope provided brief information on various types of libraries or librarians; its focus on private libraries, book collectors, and reading in Quebec did not attract researchers outside the province; some of its contents gradually became dated or known through other works; some important aspects, such as regional libraries, are scarcely mentioned; and, of course, it is now more than half a century past its original publication. Nevertheless, Drolet's history can still reward readers because the author was careful to establish his facts and confident enough to interpret more than three hundred years of Canada's past, an academic project which probably would be attempted by a collegial of effort in 2020.

Drolet's Bibliothèques canadiennes is available for readers at the Internet Archive of books.


Additional works by Drolet:

Antonio Drolet, “La Bibliothèque du Séminaire de Québec et son catalogue de 1782,” Le Canada Français 28, no. 3 (Nov. 1940): 261–266.
Antonio Drolet, “La bibliothèque de l'Université Laval,” La revue de l'Université Laval 7 (1952): 34–41.
Antonio Drolet, “La bibliothèque du Collège des Jésuites,” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française 14, no. 4 (mars 1961): 487–544.
Antonio Drolet, “L’Épiscopat canadien et les bibliothèques paroissiales de 1840 à 1900,” vol. 29, Rapport - Société canadienne d’histoire de l’Église catholique (Hull, Québec: Leclerc, 1962), 21–35.

About the author:

Alphéda Robitaille, “Hommage à un historien: Antonio Drolet, 1904–1970,” Archives: Revue de l'Association des Archivistes du Québec 70, no. 2 (juillet-décembre 1970), 32–42. [bibliography]
Charles-Marie Boissonnault, “Antonio Drolet, bibliothécaire et historien,” Proceedings and Transactions and of the Royal Canadian Society, Antonio Drolet, bibliothécaire et historien (1972), 127–134.

Les Bibliothèques Populaires (1890) by Eugène Rouillard

Les Bibliothèques Populaires by Eugène Rouillard. Québec: L.-J. Demers & Frère, 1890. 61 p.

Eugène Rouillard was a man of many talents. He was born in Québec City in 1851 and died there in 1926 after a long career as a notary, journalist and writer, civil servant, and geographer. He studied at the Université Laval from 1872-75 and graduated with a degree in law. Although he was notary at the beginning of his career, he turned to journalism as a writer and editor of newspapers and then to work in government positions for three decades. In his government positions he dealt with a wide variety of issues, such as land sales, colonization issues, and lawsuits. Rouillard came to be well respected by contemporaries: he became a member of the Société du Parler Français au Canada, the Geographical Society of Quebec, and, in 1915, the Royal Society of Canada. He was grounded in the political life of his home province and his journalistic and civil service background familiarized him with Anglo-Saxon concepts of government and civil society with respect to public services. He was the author of a number of books: Our Rivers and Lakes (1895); The White Coal: The Water-Powers of the Province of Quebec (1909), and an important work on public libraries which will be discussed here.

Rouillard was one of a number of Canadian library promoters agitating for free public libraries after 1880. John Hallam, in Toronto, was notably successful after publishing his Notes by the Way on Free Libraries and Books with a Plea for the Establishment of Rate-Supported Libraries in the Province of Ontario in 1882. The Saint John Free Library, which opened in 1883, owed much to the work of Colonel James Domville and a committee of women headed by Miss Manning Skinner. In Montreal, the bequest of Hugh Fraser led to the establishment of the Fraser Institute, open free to the public in 1885. There many other people in localities across Canada--enough to label their activity as the "public library movement." By 1891, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec had all passed provincial laws enabling municipalities to support free public libraries through regular taxation.

Les Bibliothèques Populaires (1890) appeared at a time when public library development in Canada, especially Quebec, was at an early stage. There were a variety of interpretations about "bibliothèques populaires", i.e. "popular libraries" or "libraries for the people" as they were known in Europe, especially France. These libraries usually concentrated on recreational rather than educational collections. In North America, public libraries might be regarded simply as library that was not a personal collection, as libraries for public access resulting from private initiatives (e.g., the Fraser Institute opened in Montreal), as libraries established by an organization requiring small fees for public use, or as municipally rate-supported public institutions that allowed local residents free access to reading materials at the point of entry. It was this last sense that drew Rouillard's interest and led him to publish his pamphlet promoting public libraries in the same year that the Quebec provincial government, under the premiership of Honoré Mercier, was about to issue legislation authorizing cities, towns, and villages to support free libraries (or library associations and mechanics' institutes) through taxation (54 Vic., chap. 34, sec. 1-3). The promotion of free public libraries -- primarily a British and American ideal in 1890 -- might be construed as liberal politics. But it seems that Rouillard leaned more to the reformist politics that the Mercier government practiced in asserting Quebec's position in Confederation. Rouillard repeatedly mentions that free libraries complemented the evening courses for the working class that Mercier's nationalist party had created: "En un mot, la bibliothèque est le complément indispensable de l'école; l'une ne peut aller sans l'autre" (p. 18). Rouillard contended that the state owed the working class improved educational opportunities.

In two short sections, Rouillard surveys the development of free public libraries in the United States (p. 26-36). He was particularly impressed by the Chicago and Boston libraries which had grown rapidly after the 1850s. Magnificent donations to build libraries by John Jacob Astor (New York) and Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh) also drew his admiration: "les millionnaires qui se font non seulement un devoir, mais encore un honneur et une gloire de doter leur ville natale d'une bibliothèque à l'usage du peuple" (p. 31). Also, American states had established state laws that permitted municipalities to fund public libraries on an unprecedented scale. He wrote that Canada lagged far behind America both in philanthropic efforts to establish libraries and in government support.

Developments in Europe were also explored. He notes that fourteen free popular libraries already were receiving city ​​council grants in Paris. In Britain, public library legislation had been introduced years before in 1850. Rouillard's argumentation went beyond the free distribution of reading material in libraries. He claimed that many cities and towns in England, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany offered regular evening courses and public speakers who gave their time and their knowledge for free as well.

But in Quebec, there was much work to be done to reach a similar state enjoyed by working-class people in the United State and Europe. "Dans la province de Québec — il faut bien le confesser — nous sommes encore sous ce rapport dans la première enfance" (p. 45). By comparison, Ontario was comfortably ahead: there were several free libraries and a host of libraries and evening classes of varying degree in mechanics' institutes. Rouillard accepted the idea that the education of the people was a legitimate concern of localities: "Aussi, je prétends que la ville qui veut avoir une bibliothèque chez elle doit intervenir et payer sa quote-part des frais généraux" (p. 57). Legislative grants from provincial governments were not incentive enough, each city or town must do its part. The generosity of Andrew Carnegie might not be matched in dollars, but there were rich men from the ranks of commerce and industry in Quebec who might be expected to support libraries. Rouillard concluded that the idea of popular libraries that had been launched was too noble, too big, too beautiful, and too patriotic not to catch on and flourish in the future (p. 61).

The pamphleteer made a good case in 1890, but it would be many decades before Montreal would adopt the public library concept he was advocating. At this time, the predominant position of most French Canadian leaders espoused the idea of a separate national identity for the Québécois people rather than the adoption of  Anglo-American conventions. When a proposal to use a $150,000 Carnegie grant for a new central library was floated by the mayor of Montreal in 1901, it was not accepted. The opening of a new municipal public library building on Sherbrooke Street in 1917 was of long gestation. By this time, Rouillard's treatise, grounded in the political life of Quebec in 1890, was less relevant. Nevertheless, today, when thousands of people enter the Grande Bibliothèque on Montreal's De Maisonneuve Boulevard every week, one can see that Rouillard's fundamental insight and rationale for the provision of free municipal libraries more than a century ago -- the expansion of knowledge in his home province -- was justified. In this respect, his work will reward students of library history and deepen our knowledge about the development of Canadian public libraries.

Eugène Rouillard's work is online at the Internet Archive

Rouillard's biography is available in English and French at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography site.

The Library, the School and the Child (1917) by John Whitehall Emery

The Library, the School and the Child by J.W. Emery. Toronto: Macmillan Co., 1917. ix, 216 pages, illus. Published version of Emery's Doctor of Pedagogy dissertation at the University of Toronto.

John Whitehall Emery was born in 1871 in New Sarum, a rural community southeast of London, Ont. He went to school locally and graduated from high school at Aylmer Collegiate Institute. Then he taught public school in Elgin County until he entered the University of Toronto in 1893. Shortly after, he recommenced teaching science at high schools in Kemptville and Port Hope for several years before returning to Toronto in 1902-04 to earn his bachelor's degree. He continued teaching, notably at the Stratford Normal School for teachers. He earned his doctorate in 1917 and then resumed work at the teachers' training school. He also was chair and secretary-treasurer of the Stratford Public Library in the early 1920s. He died in London in 1929.

Emery's thesis dealt with two major topics. First, in five chapters he studied the work of public libraries for children as public school pupils and as children. Second, in his following six chapters he treated government efforts in the United States, Canada, and Britain, to provide books for the young through school libraries.

At this time, public library provision of books for schools in the USA was a prominent feature of work at Buffalo, Cleveland, and Newark. The classroom library was the preferred choice and heavily used in these cities, although a branch library in a school was an occasional option. Cooperation on a local level with teachers for a variety of reference, picture collections, and professional texts, etc., also was a common practice. Children's departments and story hours in public libraries were another topic Emery examined and he provided interesting information on subjects such as "home libraries" for students who could share books with friends. Another topic included librarians working in playgrounds where many children who did not normally have access to books were active in the summer months.

Children's work in Canada was less developed. Activity in Canadian public libraries received attention in one chapter and remains a valuable starting point in histories. Emery surveyed pioneering efforts in many cities: Sarnia, Toronto, Ottawa, Victoria, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, Westmount, and Saint John to name a few. Emery reveals some interesting statistics, for example, he notes that Winnipeg was circulating 300,000 (!!) books to children in 1915. In his opinion, Victoria "has one of the most advanced children's departments in Canada, and keeps in close touch with the schools as well" (p. 94). This is not surprising because the chief librarian, Helen Gordon Stewart (who Emery does not name) had taught in Manitoba before getting library training in New York in 1908-09 and taking up work in British Columbia.

Two chapters featured the early school libraries (mostly in township school sections) in Ontario under Egerton Ryerson and also the development of district school libraries in the United States. Emery was especially impressed with the contemporary California county system whereby schools could affiliate with the county public library system and participate in the benefits of centralized, professionally trained library services, and coordinated book purchases and distribution. However, this type of service would not develop until after his death, notably in southwestern Ontario counties, in the 1930s. He provides a good survey of current (i.e., post-1900) conditions in Ontario's rural school libraries and even provides illustrations (p. 152) to show the gradual evolution of under the direction of interested teachers.

After 1902, Ontario's provincial government reintroduced small grants (cancelled in 1888) to rural schools in order to encourage library development in 5,000 school sections. However, as Emery notes, public libraries and especially the Ontario Library Association did little to further public library-school library cooperation despite efforts of members such as James P. Hoag, a teacher and school inspector and library promoter, and William F. Moore (OLA President in 1913-14), the Principal of Dundas High School for three decades. There is an informative short chapter on the work of several education departments in other provinces as well.

J.W. Emery's thesis came at an opportune time. In the USA, a School Libraries Section of the American Association of School Librarians was beginning its activities and after the end of WW I the Ontario Department of Education began to take more interest in teacher training in library work. Librarians, such as Jean Merchant at the Normal School in Toronto, and others were being appointed (and trained in library work) as librarians and instructors at normal schools in Ontario. This action can be attributed in part to Emery's thesis completed in 1917. On balance, Emery found the success of school libraries was due in most part to the attentiveness and training of teachers in library work. After surveying teacher training in library methods and the libraries in normal schools (p. 160-173), which were mainly managed by the principal's secretary at each school, he recommended Ontario's normal schools follow American precedents. Emery made a number of suggestions, the most important being (p. 206-208) --
1) to have all students attend a course in library instruction that included reference work, children's literature, and rural school library administration;
2) to permanently engage a regularly qualified librarian with teaching experience for each normal school;
3) to equip each normal school with a model rural school library;
4) to establish in each of the normal schools a collection of fifty or more of the best children's picture books and story books for the very young;
5) to permit normal schools to make small loans of books or pictures to teachers of rural schools in the vicinity.

Of course, not all Emery's suggestions were adopted, but his work formed a basis for more standardized work in bringing library methods to the fore in teacher training. Although his publication was a doctorate, Emery had a pragmatic touch due to his careful survey of library conditions. His work continues to impress a century later. His suggestions for books for rural schools, such as Thompson Seton's Lobo, Rag, and Vixen; Johnny Crow's Garden by Leslie Brooke, the Canada Year Book, or Herrington's Heroines of Canadian History reached a variety of interests and ages in elementary education. Emery's bibliography of school library work is also very useful: he mentions works by early promoters such as Harry Farr in Britain, John Cotton Dana and Frances Jenkins Olcott in the USA that are important for writing the history of school libraries.

Emery's death in 1929 cut short his career before his sixtieth birthday, nonetheless he made a lasting contribution to the development of teacher training for school libraries in Ontario.

Emery's publication is available online at the Internet Archive.

The Public Library: Its Place in Our Educational System (1912) by Edwin Austin Hardy

The Public Library: Its Place in our Educational System by Edwin Austin Hardy. Toronto: William Briggs, 1912. ii, 223 p., illus., tables, appendices. Published version of Hardy's Doctor of Paedagogy dissertation.

Edwin Austin Hardy, who was born in New Hampshire in 1867, was a teacher, author, and library advocate. When he was still a child his family moved to Uxbridge, Ontario, where he received his early education. Eventually, he received a BA at the University of Toronto in 1888. He then took teacher training and taught in Lindsay where he became a trustee at the Mechanics' Institute in 1894. Although teaching was Hardy's profession, he also promoted public libraries. In 1899, Lindsay became a free public library and Carnegie money was granted to open a new building in 1904. Hardy was one of the founders of the Ontario Library Association (OLA) in 1900 and he worked tirelessly as its Secretary from 1900-25 before serving as President in 1925-26. Hardy moved to Toronto to organize work with the Sunday Schools Associations of Ontario in 1904, to be President of Moulton Ladies' College in 1906, and then a teacher of English and History at Jarvis Street Collegiate in 1910. He retired in 1936.

Hardy was a progressive organizer in the Victorian mold and held many interests. He helped found the Toronto High School Teachers' Association in 1903 and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation in 1919. He also helped found the Canadian Teachers' Federation in 1920 and was active as an officer in the World Federation of Education Associations and the Canadian Authors' Association. He was chair of the Toronto Board of Education in 1940 and pursued activities in the League of Empire and Health League of Canada. Hardy received the Order of the British Empire for his outstanding community work in 1935.

From a library perspective, Hardy's efforts in his role as secretary of OLA to promote public libraries, trustee governance, and library training were significant. But another prominent achievement was his 1912 doctorate on public libraries and an historical account of their development in Ontario. His work reviewed the development of libraries and provided an influential account of activities that libraries could undertake to improve the lives of individuals and, by extension, society. This will be the focus of my post.

Hardy arrived on the library scene at an important moment in 1895 when the Ontario legislature introduced an Act to amend and consolidate the Acts respecting Free Libraries and Mechanics' Institutes (58 Vic., Cap. 45). One section of this act provided that every free library and every Mechanics' Institute would be called a "Public Library." Hardy felt that this terminology "had something to do with their progress since [1895], especially in the developing of public interest in their management and betterment" (p. 42-43). Of course, Hardy was thinking of larger "public libraries" that were supported by mandated municipal levies raised in cities and towns rather than the vast number of smaller "public libraries" in Ontario that subsisted on membership fees, fundraising, and modest grants from local and provincial governments. Hardy foresaw a bright future for this first type of public library: "Its possibilities are only now being recognized by our legislative and educational authorities and by the public, in fact, even by library workers themselves. But it is coming to its own, slowly at first, but gathering force and speed daily, and the near future will see the public library system of Ontario as efficient as her primary and secondary school system" (p. 123-124). Despite many societal changes, Hardy's prediction for the most part has stood the test of time for more than a century.

Hardy's outline of the early 20th-century library purposes, activities, and educational work, as well as the factors contributing to the success of Ontario's public libraries may seem somewhat simplistic or outdated by today's standards, but they were by no means entirely acceptable to all his contemporaries. In fact, Hardy's treatise was ahead of his time and filled with suggestions for improving early 20th-century libraries. In many ways, his thesis is representative of classic arguments and conditions that existed for more than half a century when public libraries in Ontario (and Canada) were establishing firmer, more systematic roots on a provincial basis. It was the full-blown era of the "public library movement" when enthusiastic citizens in many urban communities agitated for municipal rate-supported libraries that would allow free access to people in local communities. By the mid-1920s all of Ontario's larger cities had established free public libraries.

Concerning the purpose of public libraries (aka, today's mission statement) and its general operation, Hardy advocated that they provide 1) a selection of the "best books" of general, scientific and reference literature; 2) recreative "good" fiction which would reach a broader public; 3) books and story hours for children of all ages; 4) current periodical holdings to satisfy a variety of community interests; 5) properly classified and catalogued collections (Hardy favoured the Dewey Decimal system and card catalogues); 6) open access to collections; and 7) effective publicity ("The public must be made to know and to feel that the library belongs to them and not to the librarian or the Board", p. 80)

Concerning the important educative value of public libraries, Hardy outlined a number of activities:
Technical Education -- provision and promotion of books for engineering and industrial training
Commercial and Agricultural Education -- materials for bookkeeping, accounting, banking,
transportation, etc. to serve commercial growth and rural progress
Musical Education -- a variety materials (possibly sheet music as well)
Art Education -- books, catalogues, reproduction, photographs, etc.
Domestic Education -- resources for the home, its furnishings, maintenance, and health
Political Education -- newspapers, public documents, statues, legislative materials, etc. In an era before women were legally able to vote, Hardy was particularly keen to satisfy the needs of lawyers and students of politics (the "young men entering the field of public life", p. 94)
Medical and Legal Education -- mostly books for serious study or reference concerns
Teachers' Institutes -- materials that could bring teachers in closer touch with the public library
Local Clubs and Societies -- space for local organizations to house their holdings
Travelling Libraries -- a centre for local study groups to access the Ontario Department of Education's book service which continued until the early 1960s
Lecture Rooms in the Library -- "Lecture courses, debating societies, library institutes, and all such intellectual activities, find themselves in a congenial atmosphere in library buildings" (p. 97)
The Library and the School -- Hardy summarizes several ways that the public library and school might operate to the benefit of students and community life but did not advocate one over the other.

Concerning the successful administration and management of libraries, Hardy felt that Ontario was on the right track in several sections. It began with contemporary Legislative Assistance and Supervision which was now greatly improved. Only the inadequacy of the staff in the Inspector of Public Libraries office was holding back progress at the provincial level. Library Boards held the power of management and were optimally representative of their communities. Educated direction by community members was an important ingredient in library success. Of course, Hardy was hopeful that board members (mostly men) "should attract the best classes of citizens" (p. 105) and provide continuity in library affairs through open-minded decision making. He admitted that Finances were often inadequate (especially in smaller libraries) and suggested a few remedies for added grants and incentives from governments. For Public Library Buildings Hardy suggested "The essential qualities to be aimed at are simplicity, convenience, facility and economy of administration" (p. 109). He offered Lindsay as an example: its radial stack plan at the rear was open to the public for browsing and it held separate small rooms on each side of the entrance for reading purposes and children. An efficient Librarian was an instrumental part of public library success. "Efficiency here does not mean knowledge of books and skill in library methods alone; it implies a right spirit; a spirit of service, of tact, of open-minded alertness, of zeal and of sympathy" (p. 109). With proper Training of the Librarian at the recently opened summer school for librarians in Toronto in 1911, Hardy felt a good beginning had been made. But there was much work to be done in educating and training librarians in Ontario. Finally, the author concluded with some comments about Public Sentiment and Library Organization. Hardy foresaw that the efforts of the Ontario Library Association to arouse public support and establish better standards would be essential for future success.

Hardy had opened his thesis by developing a history of the public library in Ontario that followed along the lines of his contemporary, James Bain, chief librarian of Toronto Public Library. Together, they outlined a progressive record in Ontario from subscription libraries (aka, membership or association) libraries, Mechanics' Institutes, free libraries, and ultimately public libraries after 1895. Both men emphasized the community aspect of local library growth: a bottoms-up effort assisted by small provincial grants that gave prominence to Ontario's "public library movement" led by nonprofessional civic leaders. This was a Victorian success story in many ways, but one that could also continue to be improved in many ways. Victorians in Britain and Canada believed in cultural accessibility, social order, and a more expansive representative liberal democracy. Books, improved literacy, and reading freely attainable at a public institution such as the library was all well and good as Hardy illustrated in his epigraph to his work from Edward Edwards, the English librarian and author:

"To make good books of the highest order freely and easily accessible throughout the length and breadth of the land were surely to give no mean furtherance to the efforts of the schoolmaster, and of the Christian minister, to produce under God's blessing a tranquil, a cultivated and a religious people."

Hardy, a lifelong Baptist, held strong religious views and was also active in promoting Sunday School libraries. It could be said he possessed what his American contemporaries, such as Melvil Dewey, called the "library spirit" -- the possibility of social change for the better through the educative qualities of the public library. It was a stance that would be the mainstay in public library growth in Ontario until after 1945 when social life and librarianship began to undergo many changes during a new phase of mid-century modernization that emphasized recreational aspects and new concepts related to information access that Victorians, such as Hardy, could scarcely imagine. In retrospect, he provided the most informed Canadian statement concerning the "library spirit" in speaking about its main protagonist, librarian:

An efficient librarian can do more with a thousand books in unfavorable quarters than a poor librarian with ten thousand in a thoroughly satisfactory building. Efficiency here does not mean knowledge of books and skill in library methods alone; it implies a right spirit; a spirit of service, of tact, of open- minded alertness, of zeal and of sympathy. Given a librarian of that spirit, trained in some adequate fashion and the public library becomes not only the handmaid of the schools, but it becomes in a very true sense  'the people's university.' It not only meets the wants which the community now feels, but reveals to it new wants to be supplied. (p.109-10)

In time, by the 1920s, the "library spirit" that characterized work in North America in previous decades would begin to give way in Ontario to "modern methods," a unifying concept that Hardy would eventually turn to in later publications.

Hardy's published 1912 thesis is readily available online at Canadiana Online

Further reading:

John Wiseman, "'Champion Has-Been': Edwin Austin Hardy and the Ontario Library Movement," in Peter F. McNally, ed., Readings in Canadian Library History (Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, 1986), pp. 231-243.

Edwin Austin Hardy, “An Outline Program of the Work of the Ontario Library Association,” Public Libraries; a Monthly Review of Library Matters and Methods 6, no. 7 (July 1901): 414–418.

Edwin Austin Hardy, “A Half Century of Retrospect and Prospect; Annual Presidential Address,” Ontario Library Review 11, no. 2 (Nov. 1926): 41–46. [library work as "this great service of culture and happiness"]

Edwin Austin Hardy, “The Ontario Library Association: Forty Years, 1900-1940,” Ontario Library Review 25, no. 1 (Feb. 1941): 9–13. ["lay membership is of great importance"]

CANADIAN COLONIAL SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARIES, 1775-1850

From 1775 to 1850, small membership subscription libraries acted as public libraries dispensing educational resources and recreational reading to Canadian users on a geographic-community or common-interest reading basis. The variety, number, and collective status of subscription libraries ushered in the persistent nineteenth-century concept of the semi-private public library administered by trustees and populated by members who voluntarily agreed to accept entry charges, annual dues, and fundraising. The collegial space provided by the subscription library fostered a greater sense of publicness in an emerging Canadian nation before 1850. It also forged numerous associative identities in localities for like-minded reading groups. Subscription library development reveals that significant attributes of post-1850 municipal public libraries--especially the public library association which continues today--were inherited from Canada's colonial library era.

Beginning at Quebec City (1779) and Montreal (1796) and spreading to other colonies and the Canadian west, a variety of subscription libraries were established ranging from the exclusive share-holding archetype (e.g., at Halifax) to the more inclusive, general interest library supported by modest entry charges and annual fees in small towns and cites. Over time, these libraries developed on an irregular, parochial basis in differing colonial environments, although common public features are evident, such as claims for societal betterment. It was not unusual for a subscription library to be integrated with the work of specialized societies and associations (esp. in Quebec), or for the library to be aligned with news or reading rooms. This multifaceted public interface helped to bridge reading from the private to the public realm, to improve access to print resources, and to invest libraries with a communal significance in the Victorian period before Confederation. By the mid-point of the nineteenth century, subscription libraries occupied the middle ground between the personal realm and the state where formation of ideas on private liberality, community interests, and governance converged.

In the course of seven decades, subscription type libraries evolved into "library associations" regulated by public statutes stipulating control by the members and an elected governing board. These libraries were identified less with earlier joint-stock, proprietary, or subscription business terminology and more with the appellation "public library" that was in use throughout the entire period, i.e. a library that was accessible to all residents of a community, but not generally free because it required voluntary personal payments. These small libraries performed a public function but were not state agencies. In some instances, they received token payments from different government levels, but legal sanction for state financial aid did not exist in legislative acts. In the evolution of public libraries in Canada, attempts by subscription managers to achieve a public profile by seeking financial support from colonial parliaments and by staking claims to publicness (the interests of the people as a whole) were significant steps.

At the midway point of the nineteenth century, the Library Association and Mechanics’ Institute Act of 1851 became a critical foundation for the subscription library’s conversion to the Canadian "association library." In accordance with enabling legislation that would become the hallmark of twentieth-century Canadian provincial public library legislation, the 1851 law for the two Canadas (Ontario and Quebec) recognized that a public library association was to be available for persons on a voluntary membership basis. The law established that library associations would be governed by local boards of trustees independent from control by municipal politicians (a "special purpose body" later identified by political commentators and academics on local government). Further, it provided public recognition of association libraries, thereby creating the opportunity for provincial grants which supplemented local fundraising efforts. Similar legislative arrangements in other provinces, such as British Columbia, ensured that the subscription model, re-labelled as a ‘public library association,’ would continue to coexist with its "free library" cousin well into the twentieth century and beyond.

Complete information is available in my article published in Library and Information History, a quarterly journal publishing articles by authors on all subjects and all periods relating to the history of libraries and librarianship and to the history of information. For access to a free link with a limited number of PDFs, go to

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/xNpDQbtFGIhgcdeiTxib/full

CANADIAN VICTORIAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES BEFORE 1900

The common characteristics of free public libraries that were legislated in Ontario (1882), the City of Saint John (1883), and British Columbia (1891) served as a guide for public library development towards the end of the nineteenth century. In this version, the 'free public library' or 'free library' was a municipal institution governed by a board of management and funded primarily by local taxes. These libraries were accessible to all community residents who were not charged at the point of entry. Local decisions, based on provincial legislation, mostly determined the establishment and governance of libraries. Community members participated on a voluntary basis and the nature and extent of services varied from one community to another.

However, widespread acceptance of this 'model' developed slowly, in part because other views identified the 'public library' as one that was accessible to all residents of a community, but not generally free or a constituent part of local government because it relied on voluntary personal payments or contributions from philanthropic individuals, community groups, or persons willing to pay a membership fee. This type of library performed a public function but was not a state agent, i.e. the municipal, provincial, or federal government. Often, the establishment of libraries open free to the public was furthered by philanthropic efforts and managed privately.  In some cases, these libraries received assistance and direction from government in recognition of their beneficial public function.

It is these atypical or hybrid libraries that will be discussed here in a Canadian context. They were public libraries open freely to the public without direct charge or with small personal (or family) charges. They were clearly regarded as community-based service agencies. In many ways, they characterized the importance of nineteenth-century ideas about voluntarism, civic promotion, and public-private partnerships working in the interest of the public good. They were distinctive in their own right and founded in all parts of British North America as the following few examples illustrate.

New Westminster, B.C. --- In 1865, New Westminster was the capital of the mainland colony of British Columbia. There were two initial inducements to establish an institute and public library: a collection of books offered by the disbanded Columbia Detachment of Royal Engineers and Queen Victoria's donation of a copy of her late husband Prince Albert's speeches "to the public libraries of her more important colonies." The New Westminster Library and Reading Room opened on 15 August 1865 on Columbia Street supported by a grant from the colonial government and by membership and regular subscription rates, e.g. to borrow books a member paid $5 a year. The library operated from a building that formerly housed the colony's official Mint and was run by a board of management composed of four colonial officials and the president of the municipal council. This happy state of affairs continued for a few years until the colony's government funding was withdrawn by 1868. Subscriptions--a common method of financing 19th-century local libraries--supported library operations thereafter until 1890. At this point, the federal government offered the Mint property to the city provided a new building would be erected and opened as a free public library. The offer was accepted: the mint was demolished and a new building opened in 1892 with renewed funding from the municipality. For most this period, the library was never a 'free library' in the modern sense but exhibited a private-public partnership to support a 'public library' that was not unusual in the 19th century.

Montreal Free Library/Gésu Free Library (est. 1889) --- "Any bona fide resident of Montreal, irrespective of class or creed, is entitled, under certain conditions, to draw books from the Gésu Free Library." So read the introduction to an 1895 catalogue of circulating books for the Gésu Free Library opened on 4 October 1889. It was aimed at primarily English-speaking Catholic Montrealers. The library was essentially a parish library situated near the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie on Bleury Street. The library owed its existence to the dedicated work of a few ladies active in the Promoters of the League of the Sacred Heart who raised funds through annual afternoon teas. They desired to promote books based on Christian beliefs and morals. A small committee, ultimately responsible to the Sacred Heart Union, managed the library. By 1895, the library was circulating 15,000 books to an extended public in downtown Montreal and receiving in-kind donations and money from private citizens. The library offered titles in English, with translations of French authors who were mostly Catholic. Notably, however, there were fiction books for youngsters, such as Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy, at a time when many public libraries maintained age limits excluding children. There were also popular British novelists: Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Bulwer-Lytton, and Scott. American authors, such as Irving and Cooper, and few women authors, such as the Irish novelist Rosa Mullholland and Lady Georgiana Fullerton, were also available. The Montreal Free Library (sometimes called Sacred Heart Union Library) was not a municipal institution of course, it was a small library without charge at the point of entry and based on the ideas of its Catholic promoters that good reading (including fiction). Considering the mid-19th century controversies in Montreal about liberal works and fiction in general regarding the closure of the Institut Canadien de Montréal, this was a progressive step. Books for children was another important ingredient that would eventually become an orthodox feature of public libraries.

Fraser Institute, Montreal (est. 1885) --- In his 1870 will, the businessman Hugh Fraser placed most of his possessions amounting to $200,000 in trust to John J. C. Abbott and Frederick Torrence to establish an institution--a free public library, museum, and gallery open to all Montreal's citizens regardless of class and without any fee. The Fraser Institute was incorporated by a statute in 1870 that determined its course: "to aid in the diffusion of useful knowledge by affording free access, to all desirous of it, to books and to scientific objects and subjects, and to works of art, and for that purpose to erect appropriate buildings, and to procure books, scientific objects and subjects, and works of art, making always the acquisition and maintenance of a library the leading object to be kept in view." The Institute was managed by an elite Board of Governors; however, legal battles over Fraser's will delayed progress. Finally, a building was acquired and opened in 1885. The Institute, located at the corner of University Street and Dorchester Boulevard, initially was a reference library. A circulating collection commenced operations in 1889. Thus, after almost 20 years, the Institute was able to fulfill its original purpose outlined in the 1870 Act. Hugh Fraser's philanthropic vision involved a private institution--starting as an endowed library--operating in the public interest to further educational standards. It had a self-perpetuating incorporated private board of managers which, from time to time, made substantial contributions to its success and ensured free access.

Yarmouth Public Library, N.S. (est. 1872) -- Loran Ellis Baker, a prominent local businessman and politician, was instrumental in establishing a public library in Yarmouth in 1872. He first purchased 2,500 books and then presented a library, housed on the second floor of the Young and Baker building, to the town's citizens. The library was open for limited hours each week, but books circulated free of charge. All the library expenses, including the salary of a custodian who also maintained the library, were assumed by Baker. From time to time, townsfolk contributed books and material objects which eventually formed the basis for a museum. For more than a quarter-century, Baker's generous civic-mindedness served local residents well and in the 1890s, the Yarmouth Council made small appropriations to the library. When L.E. Baker died in 1899, his will stipulated that the library, its books and materials, as well as $8,000 would be made available to an incorporated body with the proviso that an equal amount be raised to establish a free public library and museum within five years. The Yarmouth Public Library and Museum was incorporated in September 1904. It was a 'free library' operated by a private body--the Yarmouth Free Public Library Association--that did not charge a fee for borrowing books. Residents could, however, pay a nominal fee to become a member of the Association managing the library and museum.

Town of Portland, N.B. (est. 1882) -- After Isaac Burpee, a prominent MP representing the local riding in Parliament, provided a small collection of books for Portland, the town turned to the local branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for assistance. The members of this branch had built a Union Hall for the promotion of temperance and social and moral reforms, a fitting home of a town library. In 1882, the Portland WCTU incorporated (45 Vic. Chap 93, Act of NB 1882). The management of the library within the Hall was vested in the hands of the WCTU. Although the town provided support for the building and its maintenance, a small fee was also charged for library use by the WCTU library committee. This situation continued for a few years until Portland was annexed by Saint John in 1888, after which this library began to receive regular grants provided residents would not be charged for borrowing books and use of the library. The activity of the WCTU was an early manifestation of the interest by women's groups in promoting and maintaining public libraries across the nation.

Pettes Memorial Library, Que. (est. 1894) -- Narcissa Farrand Pettes built and donated a library to the village of Knowlton and Brome Township, Quebec, in memory of her late husband, Nathaniel Pettes. In the same year, 1894, the Quebec Legislature enacted An Act to Incorporate the "Pettes Memorial." This legislation stipulated that the Pettes building would be "a free public library and reading room, to be open to all honest and respectable persons whomsoever, of every rank in life, without distinction." Also, the building would function as "a lecture hall, to be used in connection with the said library and reading room, and solely for purposes calculated to promote and advance the interests and usefulness of the same." The purpose was clearly Victorian in mindset: the Pettes Memorial was intended to promote "the diffusion of useful knowledge, by affording free access, to all desiring it, to books, magazines and periodicals, making always the acquisition and maintenance of a library the leading object to be kept in view." An incorporated board of seven trustees was established to oversee the library. Narcissa Pettes also agreed to pay the salary for the librarian, to assume the cost of maintenance during her lifetime, and to leave funds to be invested to meet future annual expenses.

Halifax Citizens' Free Library, N.S. (est. 1864) --  At Halifax, the collections of two previous incorporated subscription libraries, the Mechanics' Library (est. 1831) and the Halifax Library (est. 1823-24), formed the nucleus of the Citizens’ Free Library by the mid-1870s in the city hall courthouse. In 1864, the city council accepted a generous offer from Chief Justice William Young, who had purchased the collection of the Mechanics’ Library, to administer and to open a library freely to local residents. A Halifax newspaper lent hearty support for ‘public institutions of a literary character’ especially at modest cost. Later, in 1876, the city bought books from the defunct Halifax Library, which the privileged classes had supported for half a century. In the following year, provincial legislation (40 Vic. chap. 34) permitted municipal funding for the Free Library to pay debts and maintenance costs without resort to direct personal fees: "The City Council may payout of the general assessment of the City or may add to the sums authorized to be assessed, such a sum not to exceed one thousand two hundred dollars, as may be necessary for the maintenance of the Citizens' Free Library and defraying the expenses thereof." A committee of city aldermen parsimoniously managed affairs and the library moved a few times before settling into the city hall in 1890. During this time, the library suffered a chronic shortage of funds, a situation that did not improve in the first part of the 20th-century. Nonetheless, the Citizen's Free Library was the first Canadian instance of 1) ongoing municipal tax support without a specific rate clause that a managing committee could not rely on and  2) municipal administration of a library open to the public without charge at point of access.

In the late Victorian era, commentaries on the rationale for free public libraries serving the general public were becoming commonplace. This evolution in thinking combined with legislative standards, enhanced physical library access, and claims that libraries advanced literacy, educational attainment, and societal progress, reinforced support for libraries. In a more prosperous and educated nation, with wealthier business leaders, an increasingly literate populace, a growing middle-class interested in cultural uplift, and civic-minded leaders, the formation of libraries became a cause--a movement--that attracted promoters and followers. Given the disparate state of local government across the new Dominion, a variety of options emerged after Confederation in 1867 for alternative methods of governance and private-public financial support for libraries open to the public without charge to users

Further Reading

Moodey, Edgar C. The Fraser-Hickson Library: An Informal History. London: Clive Bingley, 1977 at the Internet Archive

Hanson, Elizabeth. “Books for the People: The Fraser Institute, 1885-1900.” Épilogue : Canadian Bulletin for the History of Books, Libraries, and Archives 11, no. 2 (1996): 1–10

Montreal Free Library. Analytical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Montreal Free Library. 3rd ed. Montreal: Montreal Free Library, Library Hall, 146 Bleury Street, 1895 at the Internet Archive.

Lamonde, Yvan. “Un aspect inconnu du débat autour de la bibliothèque publique à Montréal: la Montreal Free Library (1889- ).” Les Cahiers des Dix, no. 57 (2003): 263–71. https://doi.org/10.7202/1008108ar.

Rotherham, G.A. The History of the Pettes Memorial Library Knowlton, Quebec, 1894-1983; The Oldest Free Public Library in the Province of Quebec. Knowlton, Québec: Privately Printed, 1983.

Free Public Library (Yarmouth, N.S.), ed. Catalogue, Free Public Library of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Established 1872. Saint John, N.B.: J. & A. McMillan, 1872.

THE PROVINCE OF CANADA ACT FOR LIBRARY ASSOCIATIONS AND MECHANICS' INSTITUTES, 1851

By the middle of the 19th century in the Province of Canada (present day Ontario and Quebec) many local groups had formed library associations and mechanics' institutes. A few organizations, such as the Toronto Mechanics' Institute, Quebec Library, or the Montreal Mercantile Library Association, were incorporated under separate laws in the 1840s. Legislators recognized the need to provide general public legislation regulating the establishment, holdings, and activities of dozens of existing and potential new subscription/membership organizations. Robert Bell, the MP for Lanark (Ontario), introduced a Bill to facilitate the formation of institutes and library associations in the 3rd Parliament of the United Provinces in summer 1851. The Act did not stipulate public funding, however, legislative grants were made to dozens of institutes and associations (as well as combinations of both) each year until 1858 when funding ceased due to an economic downturn.

The 1851 legislation continued in force after Confederation in Ontario and Quebec under Chapter 86 of the Consolidated Statutes of Canada, 1859. The law was important because it fortified the concept that a "public library" could one that was accessible to all residents of a community, but not generally free because it required voluntary personal payments. This type of public library formation was readily accepted by the mid-19th century in British North America. The Act served as a guide for other provincial jurisdictions to formalize library development. Nova Scotia passed a similar law, ‘An Act Respecting Library Associations and Institutes,’ on 18 April 1872, as did British Columbia on 24 February 1871, ‘An Act Respecting Literary Societies and Mechanics’ Institutes.’ Association Libraries would coexist into the Twentieth Century alongside Free Libraries--ones supported with municipal taxation and not requiring membership fees at the entrance point.

The 1851 Act was 'enabling legislation' which became the basic foundation for general provincial public library acts in post-Confederation Canada. The 1851 law (and subsequent similar provincial acts) contained influential ideas about public libraries. It recognized that a public library would be available to persons through voluntary decisions, not mandated legal provisions. It established that libraries would be governed by local boards of trustees independent from control by municipal politicians, a ‘special purpose body’ in public administrative terminology. Further, it provided public recognition of libraries as incorporated bodies through public legislation, thereby creating the opportunity for provincial grants in the public interest that supplemented local fundraising efforts. Consequently, hundreds of library associations and mechanics' institutes were formed and continued in provincial legislation into the 20th century.

The re-quoted 1851 text follows:

1851—14 & 15 VICTORIAE, CHAPTER 86

An Act to provide for the incorporation and better Management of Library Associations and Mechanics' Institutes

                                                                                           [30th August, 1851]

WHEREAS it is expedient to encourage the establishment of Library Associations and Mechanics' Institutes, and for that purpose to provide for the incorporation of such Institutions, and to grant them certain powers enabling them better to protect their property and manage their affairs: Be it therefore enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada, constituted and assembled by virtue of and under the authority of an Act passed in the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and intituled, An Act to re-unite the Province of Upper and Lower Canada, and for the Government of Canada, and it is hereby enacted by the authority of the same, That any number of persons, not less than ten, having subscribed, or holding together not less than Twenty-five Pounds in money or money's worth, for the use of their intended Institution, may make and sign a Declaration (in duplicate) of their intention to establish a Library Association or a Mechanics' Institute, or both, (as the case may be,) at some place to be named in such Declaration, in which they shall also state the corporate name of the Institution, its purpose, the amount of money or money's worth subscribed by them respectively, or held by them for the use thereof, the names of those who are to be the first Trustees for managing its affairs, and the mode in which their successors are to be appointed, or new Members of the Corporation admitted, or in which Bye-laws are to be made for such appointment or admission, or for any other purpose, or for all purposes, and generally such other particulars and provisions as they may think necessary, not being contrary to this Act or to Law: or in case of a Mechanics' Institute or Library Association (or both united) already established or in existence, then, that the Directors, Trustees or the Office Bearers and Committee thereof for the time being, may make and sign a Declaration as aforesaid, of their wish or determination to become incorporated, according to the provisions of this Act, stating in such Declaration the Corporate Name to be assumed by such Institution or United Institutions,—and also with such Declaration, to file in the manner hereinafter provided, a copy of the Constitution and Bye-laws of such Institution and or United Institutions, together with a general statement of the nature and amount of all the property, real or personal, held by or in trust for such Institution or United Institutions: and one duplicate of such Declaration shall then be filed in the Office of the Registrar of Deeds for the County by one of the subscribing parties, who shall, before such Registrar, acknowledge the execution thereof by himself, and declare the same to have been executed by the other parties thereto, either in person or by their Attorneys; and the Registrar shall then keep one of the said duplicates, and deliver the other to the person filing the same, with a Certificate of the same having been so filed, and the execution attested before him, and such duplicate, or any copy thereof certified by such Registrar, shall be primâ facie evidence of the facts alledged in such Declaration and Certificate.

  II. And be it enacted, That when the formalities aforesaid have been complied with, the persons having signed such Declaration as aforesaid, or the Directors, Trustees or the Office Bearers and Committee for the time being, of any such Institution or United Institutions now established or in existence as aforesaid, and their successors, shall be a body corporate and politic, and shall have the powers, rights and immunities, vested in such bodies under the Interpretation Act and by Law, with power to such Corporation, in their corporate name, from time to time, and at all times hereafter, to have, take, acquire, hold, possess and enjoy to them, and to their successors, to and for the uses and purposes of such Corporation, any messuages, lands, tenements or hereditaments, of what nature or kind soever, situate within this Province; but the yearly value of the real property to be held by any such Corporation, shall never exceed One Hundred Pounds currency.

   III. And be it enacted, That the affairs of such Corporation shall be managed by the Directors or Trustees thereof for the time then being, appointed as hereinafter, or by any By-law of such Corporation provided, who, or a majority of whom, shall have full power to exercise all the powers of the Corporation, and to act in its name and on its behalf, and to use its Seal, subject always to any provisions limiting the exercise of such powers in the Declaration aforesaid, or in any By-law of the Corporation; and such Trustees, or a majority of them, shall have power to make By-laws binding the Members and Officers thereof, and such others as shall agree to be bound by them, for all purposes relative to the affairs and business of the Corporation, except as to matters touching which it is provided by the Declaration aforesaid, that By-laws shall be made in some other manner.

   IV. And be it enacted, That the Members of such Corporation, at their Annual Meeting, to be held on such day as may be provided by any By-law of the said Corporation, may choose from among themselves a President, and may appoint (except in so far as it may be otherwise provided in the Declaration or By-laws) a Librarian, Treasurer, Secretary, Lecturer, and such other Officers and servants of the Corporation as they may think necessary, and fix and pay their remuneration; and also a Board of Directors or Trustees of such Corporation, who shall hold office for one year, or such further time as may be hereinafter limited or permitted.

   V. And be it enacted, That a failure to elect Trustees on any day appointed for that purpose by the Declaration aforesaid, or by any By-laws, shall not operate the dissolution of the Corporation, but the Trustees then in office shall remain in office until their successors are elected, which they may be (if no other provision be made therefor by the Declaration or By-laws) at any Meeting of the Members of the Corporation at which a majority of such Members shall be present, in whatever way such

   VI. And be it enacted, That any such Corporation shall have power by its By-laws to impose a fine not exceeding One Pound, on any Member contravening the same, or on any person not being a Member of the Corporation, who shall in writing have agreed to obey the By-law for the contravention whereof it is imposed; and any such fine, if incurred, and any subscription or other sum of money which any Member or other person may have agreed to pay to the said Corporation, for his subscription to the funds of the Corporation for any certain time, or for the loan of any book or instrument, or for the right of entry to the rooms of the Corporation, or of attending any lectures, or for any other privilege or advantage afforded him by such Corporation, may be recovered by the Corporation by action in any Court having jurisdiction in civil matters to the amount, on allegation and proof of the signature of defendant to some writing by which he shall have undertaken to pay such subscription, or to obey such By-law, and of this breach of such undertaking, which breach shall be presumed until the contrary be shewn, as regards any promise to pay any sum of money, and may be proved by the oath of any one credible witness, as regards the contravention of any such By-law; and in any such action, or any other to which such Corporation may be a party, any Member or Officer of the Corporation shall be a competent witness, and any copy of any By-law bearing the signature of the defendant, or bearing the Seal of the Corporation, and the signature of some person purporting to have affixed any such Seal by authority of the Corporation, shall be primâ facie evidence of such By-law; and all fines so recovered shall belong to the Corporation for the use thereof.

   VII. And be it enacted, That any such Corporation may,  if it be so stated in the said Declaration, be at the same time a Mechanics'  Institute or a Library  Association,  or either of them, and their business shall accordingly be the ordinary and usual business of a  Mechanics'  Institute or of a Library Association,  or both,  as the case may be,  and no other,  but may embrace all things necessary and useful for the proper and convenient carrying on of such business;  and their funds and property shall be appropriated and used for purposes legitimately appertaining to such business,  and for no other.

   VIII. And be it enacted, That if it be provided in such Declaration as aforesaid, or by the By-laws of the Corporation, that the shares of the Members, or of any class of Members, in the property of the Corporation, shall be transferable, then they shall be transferable accordingly, in such way, and subject to such conditions, as shall be mentioned in such Declaration, or in the By-laws of the Corporation, if by such Declaration, such transfers are to be regulated by them; and all such shares shall be personal property, and by such Declaration of By-laws provision may be made for the forfeiture of such shares in cases to be therein named, or for preventing the transfer thereof to others than persons of some certain description, or resident within some certain locality.

   IX. And be it enacted, That provision may be made for the dissolution of such Corporation, by the Declaration aforesaid, or it may be therein provided, that such provision may be made by the By-laws of the Corporation to be hereafter passed: Provided that no such dissolution shall take place until all the liabilities of the Corporation are discharged.

   X. And be it enacted, That nothing in this Act contained shall prevent any Mechanics' Institute or Library Association (or both united) from being and becoming incorporated by a separate Act of Parliament, as if this Act had not been passed; nor shall this Act be held in any way to affect or extend to any Mechanics' Institute, or Library Association already incorporated.

---

Five years after its passage, the 1851 Act was amended to allow local boards of management to hold property of value up to £500. The amended act, which applied to Canada West (Ontario) and Canada East (Quebec)  follows:

CHAPTER 51 — 19 VICTORIA

An Act to amend the Act for incorporating Library Associations and Mechanics' Institutes.

                                                                                       [Assented to 19th June, 1856]

WHEREAS it is expedient to amend the second section of the Act passed in the session held in the fourteenth and fifteenth years of Her Majesty's Reign, and intituled, An Act for the incorporation and better management of Library Associations and Mechanics' Institutes, so as to enable such institutions in certain towns and villages to hold property to a larger amount than the sum therein limited: Therefore, Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Council and Assembly of Canada, enacts as follows:

  I. From and after the passing of this Act, it shall be lawful for any Library Association or Mechanics' Institute incorporated under the said Act, and situate in any village or town having of more than three thousand inhabitants or more, to hold real property not exceeding in annual value the sum of five hundred pounds; and for any Library Association or Mechanics' Institute incorporated under the said Act, and situate in any town or city not having more than three thousand inhabitants, to hold real property not exceeding in annual value the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds; any thing in the said section to the contrary notwithstanding.