From Library Work to Library Science: Canadian Librarianship, 1920–1960

Canadian librarianship was formed incrementally and was loosely structured in the first half of the twentieth century when it emerged as a modern professional career. Librarianship coalesced around the broader field of an emerging academic discipline, library science, an expanding range of professional specialties (e.g., children’s librarianship or special library work), increasingly technical aspects related to acquiring and organizing different types of resources and offering readers and other clients assistance and information. For the most part, librarians in various settings sought to develop an intermediary role between their clientele and the world of print. They did so when library science evolved as a university-based discipline grounded in the knowledge and techniques of collecting, organizing, and managing records for public use. In 2019, I examined three significant issues on this topic in an article From Library Work to Library Science in Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research 14 (1), 1–41. It is freely available and provides a more detailed discussion of the issues summarized in this blog: the primacy of a service ethic, the question of acceptable library education and training, and issues surrounding the profession’s female intensity during first-wave feminism before 1960.

After 1920, Canadian librarians benefited from adopting a service philosophy, the evolution of higher educational qualifications, improved workplace methods, and the formation of associations which offered self-improvement and advancement of libraries. The aims of improved service for an expanded reading public, development of bibliographic methods, and connecting people with books were constant goals in the small, female-intensive Canadian library community. Librarians began to position themselves as educated, reliable, and unselfish professionals who fulfilled their users’ information needs. Even though they were employed in various institutional roles with a diverse clientele and administrative structures that made overarching consensus difficult, librarians believed they were achieving standing as a ‘professional librarian’ and reserving for themselves the idea of self-managed careers that suited a variety of employment settings.

Over four decades, Canadian librarianship evolved progressively from elementary library training after WWI to the career-oriented, service-minded librarian underpinned by the academic subject of library science in the early 1960s. The service orientation was tailored to suit the needs of users and communities. Accordingly, librarianship could claim a general societal role of connecting people with resources and information using trusted professional expertise. Canada’s foremost spokesperson for librarians in the first part of the 20th century, George Locke, was confident on this score. In speaking to University of Toronto students in 1932 he declared, “So long as we are a democracy we need intelligence; so long as we need intelligence in the community we need librarians; so we shall need librarians to the end of Time.”

A service profession

A service philosophy was already ingrained in library work by 1920, so its adoption by a growing number of librarians presented no difficulty. In 1919, Mary J.L. Black, chief librarian at Fort William Public Library (now Thunder Bay), prioritized her thoughts about successful contemporary librarianship: (1) the spirit of service, (2) a knowledge of people, (3) a knowledge of books, (4) an acquaintance with library technique and business training. In the same year, Mabel Dunham, chief librarian at Kitchener Public Library, encouraged young female university graduates to display “the splendid spirit of unselfish service for others” in their daily library work. In 1926, Edgar Robinson, Vancouver’s chief librarian, declared, “For freedom of activity and opportunity for expression of individuality through service, library work has no equal.” Three decades later, when the Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (the Massey Commission) considered the state of local Canadian libraries, it recognized that “librarians must know their books and how to care for them; they must also know their community and how to serve it.” Public service became a keynote of librarianship as it emerged slowly as a self-directed profession in Canada before the dramatic social, educational, and cultural changes of the 1960s.

Library Science and professional training 

Education and training were crucial ingredients in the development of Canadian librarianship. McGill University and the University of Toronto established graduate library degree programs in the 1920s and benefited from improved accreditation programs instituted by the American Library Association in the 1930s. By the 1960s, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) confirmed that a graduate with a two-term bachelor’s degree in library science (the BLS) was the standard requirement to gain entry into the profession. At its November meeting in 1959, the CLA Council adopted the following statement concerning a “fully qualified professional librarian:” (1) the equivalent of the BA degree as granted in Canada and (2) proof of library training equivalent to that required for the BLS in Canada or master’s (MLS) in the United States, (3) persons with less training employed in Canada may be limited in professional advancement. Of course, some ambitious students pursued library degrees in prestigious American schools, such as Columbia, which held more extensive collections. After the Carnegie Corporation of New York began funding fellowship grants for library work in 1929, 19 librarians working in Canada received $32,100 between 1931–42 to further their studies outside of Canada. When American library schools began replacing the BLS after 1948 with a one-year master’s degree as the first entry into librarianship, Toronto (1951) and McGill (1956) followed suit, although they required students to first possess a BLS. Throughout this period, library education blended a humanistic public-spirited service and print-oriented stewardship to librarianship centred around a popular slogan: “If you like people, you like books.” 

McGill University Summer Library School Students, Banff, Alberta, 1941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The discipline of library science provided librarians with a core expertise combined with techniques to manage libraries and assist users that was mostly aligned with humanistic values. Librarians were inclined to interpret ‘scientific’ in the sense of employing orderly practices and managing efficiency in the cause of public service. A nebulous ‘philosophy of librarianship’ often sufficed in place of principled statements on issues such censorship, which was a typically muted subject. Librarianship exhibited a combination of cultural stewardship of printed resources and social service allied with managerial efficiency to serve a variety of clientele. As such, it emerged slowly as a self-directed profession in Canada before the dramatic social, educational, and cultural changes of the 1960s.

A Woman’s Profession

A hallmark of librarianship is its female-intensity. A British woman working at Toronto Public Library in the late 1920s noted the unmistakable gendered landscape of Canadian libraries: 2 men managed a staff of 150 women, although nearly every small town was run by a woman. Gendered perceptions obscured the steady progress libraries and librarians were making during first-wave feminism. Although men were usually chief librarians in major cities, such as Toronto, Ottawa, Vancouver, Calgary, and Montreal, almost all public libraries in small cities were headed by women. Two cities, Windsor and Hamilton, were led by women who became presidents of the CLA. The war years helped fortify the idea that women could perform equally as well as men. Accounts of library work by Elizabeth Loosley in 1945 depicting challenges at an air force station, and by Monica Hodges in 1946 describing difficulties in naval libraries, disproved the notion that women could not cope with demanding situations. After the war, women in all sectors of librarianship proved their worth as managers, belying the convention that the highest appointments should be reserved for men. In the 1950s, CLA promoted librarianship as a career for intelligent, active professionals of advanced university standing. Because societal stereotypes shaped librarianship, Roma Harris in Librarianship: The Erosion of a Woman's Profession (1992) argued that the intermediary role centering on the client’s need rather than the expertise of the librarian was not fully appreciated due to female intensity. As well, a case can be made that the small number of librarians hampered efforts to achieve enhanced status as a profession: graduate numbers were perennially low between 1931–65. The 1931 Canadian census reported 1,009 librarians as a separate professional category subdivided into 6 groupings. The 1961 census reported a tripling to 3,460 librarians subdivided by 12 subcategories. Obviously, librarianship was a small field at the outset of the 1960s. Gendered problems, especially the ‘pay gap’ and the ‘glass ceiling,’ remained low-key issues until second-wave feminism surfaced in earnest after the federal government’s Royal Commission on the Status of Women issued its report in December 1970 and societal norms began to change. 

Collective Action 

Before 1920, there were only two provincial library associations: Ontario (1900) and British Columbia (1911). Before the end of WW II,  Québec (1932), the Maritimes (1935), Manitoba (1936), Saskatchewan (1942), and Alberta (1944) formed associations. Smaller groups were also established. Special librarians formed two chapters, one in Montreal (1932) and one in Toronto (1940). Children’s librarians launched their own national association in 1939 and l’Association canadienne des bibliothèques catholiques formed in 1943 (changed to Association canadienne des bibliothécaires de langue française in 1948). These provided the basis for collective action and personal growth. Canada was known to be a country of regional diversity and it was not until the postwar era that a national voice, the CLA, emerged. This association allowed libraries and librarians to clarify and advocate for particular issues, improve individual expertise, form groups to engage in specialist development, recognize commonalities of purpose beyond local and provincial scales, and support the public interest. CLA was a decisive force in creating a National Library in 1953 and promoting librarianship on a national scale. As librarianship became more specialized, CLA created specific sections in the 1950s. Shortly after 1960, two major divisions formed: the Canadian School Library Association (1961) and the Canadian Association of College and University Libraries (1963). The Canadian Association of Law Libraries separated from its American counterpart in 1963. Thereafter, the tendency to create small, specialized or local library bodies accelerated, and national considerations lessened.

Beyond the 1960s

The achievement of status as a minor profession was gradual during the depression and war years, with an upturn in the postwar era. Canadian librarians chose to a pursue informal, flexible professionalization by assuming a service philosophy, elaborating educational standards, establishing standardized workplace methods, and developing collective action by in multiple associations. The postwar era featured economic growth, population increases, more intensive research, and educational and social conditions that warranted the need for libraries to supply published resources and new media. Yet, at the outset of the 1960s, the future, not the current foundation, engaged the attention of library educators, practitioners, and associations. A growing number of library science educators began introducing new subject matter into curricula related to research methods, abstracting, literature searching, and methods of information retrieval. In January 1958, the CLA organized a successful conference on documentation techniques at McGill University. In the following decade, it became evident that the emerging discipline of information science required librarians to consider more specialized ideas and training.

There was less reliance on library tradition, especially relationships with print resources. The characteristics of media that impacted society, famously condensed to “the medium is the message” by Marshall McLuhan in the mid-1960s, presented challenges to the book-centred knowledge held by librarians. Second-wave feminism opposed gender inequality and negative stereotypes, but significant progress in libraries would have to await a sharper focus on disparities by the ‘four-fifths minority’ in the 1970s. As before, the evolution of Canadian librarianship continued professionally with the value of service at the forefront together with newer ideas, such as intellectual freedom, and areas of concern, such as literacy. Issues would become broader, less concerned with the printed formats and more focused on computer technology. The beginning of the merger of librarianship and the information professional was underway. After 1960, as the core knowledge of librarians began to transition to library and information science, they would adopt new professional values and confront social issues in a more forthright way as the computer era and more assertive feminism took hold.

Mabel Dunham and librarianship as a profession for women is the subject of my previous blog.

The development of a library profession in Ontario is the subject of my previous blog. 

The  development of post-secondary libraries and librarianship after WW II is the subject of my previous blog.

The Carnegie program to finance Canadian college collections in the 1930s is the subject of my previous blog.

Canadian Mid-century School Libraries and Modern Education, 1945—1950

School Libraries in Canada before 1945

Although Canadian school libraries exhibited signs of progress during the 1930s, this work came to a halt for the most part at the outset of the Second World War. In the thirties, while British Columbia and Ontario schools continued the tradition of small classroom collections, promotion of recreational reading, and reliance to a great extent on public libraries for book stocks and branches in schools, there were indications of change. In Ontario, Margaret Fraser, an influential high school librarian at Galt (now Cambridge), outlined what she felt the mission of the school library should be in 1938: “The school library should be the centre of all school activities, working with the teachers and students of all grades and departments. Its work is varied and continuous, but the librarian has three main aims: ( 1) to encourage reading, (2) to assist the teacher, (3) to teach the student to help himself.” In British Columbia, a Manual for Small School Libraries was issued in 1940 that recommended the American Library Association standards of a trained teacher-librarian and separate classroom for elementary schools with more than 100 pupils and a teacher-librarian or full-time librarian for schools with more than 500 students.

 Interest in school libraries did continue during the wartime years, the subject of my earlier blog on Louise Riley and Jack Brown at this link. They explored school-public library cooperation and the need for greater provincial support from departments of education. Riley’s thesis in particular was an important study of school services in larger cities with more than 10,000 population in several provinces. She reported the typical state of affairs: “In Canada, classroom collections are provided by the public library or the school board or both to some elementary and junior high schools in thirty-one of the fifty cities included in this report.” As for centralized libraries: “There are some centralized school libraries in elementary and junior high schools in fifteen public school and three separate school systems.“ She concluded, “The school library movement is in its infancy in Canada.”

Towards the end of WW II, the Canadian Library Council issued Canada Needs Libraries; it included provincial statements on the needs for improved school services. Although the main focus was on public library development, school libraries, especially at the secondary level, received more attention in the Ontario and Saskatchewan briefs. With the formation of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) in 1946, a truly national voice came into being for library work with children, adolescents, and students. Within a year, a section of CLA was established that included librarians interested in work for children and youth. In November 1947, the Association's journal published several articles on school library work, with a leading article that pointed to new directions and a new philosophy of service related to educational trends in North America. The principal author was a former teacher, Lillian Lyle Evans (BA 1940, Saskatchewan, and BLS 1942, Toronto), newly appointed as supervisor of school libraries for Saskatchewan in 1946. After working briefly at Toronto Public Library in the Kipling Room, the section for adolescents, and a Florida school library during the war, she became a dynamic force in Canadian school librarianship and eventually Canadian School Libraries Association president in 1969 –70. She set forth a new compelling role for school libraries that was being cultivated in the United States in the CLA Bulletin published in November 1947.

To-day the school library is conceived as a functional unit of the school, that is as a workshop or laboratory where individuals and classes carry on desirable activities and have valuable experiences. The school library now makes possible investigation and research, curriculum enrichment, independent study and recreational reading. This new and broader concept is a direct outgrowth of recent social and educational changes.

Canadian School Library Progress after 1945

Lyle Evans was referring to the progressive child-centred concept of schooling championed by John Dewey which flourished from the 1920s to 1950s. The traditional, conservative approach in education for a long time was teacher-centred. There was an emphasis on oral instruction, reading and reciting facts from a few graded texts, taking notes, memorizing information by repetition, and studying individually or in classroom groups. Small book collections usually satisfied this concept. Progressivism meant fitting instruction to the different needs of each pupil; it meant curriculum revision and the eclipse of rote textbook learning; it meant new teaching methods focusing on real-world situations for pupil and group activities; and it meant a new emphasis on understanding social and civil affairs. For school library collections it meant supplying demands for wide reading and provision of varied reference sources. For library staffing it meant training in teaching and librarianship in order to guide or instruct pupils in selecting appropriate material to read and helping students clarify their thinking and reaching valid conclusions. In Lyle Evans' estimation, “the school library is an integral part of the educative process, and its objectives are actually identical with those of any modern educational program.” At mid-century, progressive education was considered to be ‘modern’ and infused ideas and methods in the United States and Canada despite critics who preferred standardized testing and high standards, such as Hilda Neatby, who published So Little For the Mind in 1953.

    The November 1947 pages of the CLA Bulletin featured prominent contemporary figures in school librarianship. Margaret E. Reid, an Ontario College of Education and Queen's University graduate, wrote on student library usage in St. Catharines. She outlined the usual types of student use: classes with a period of library science (normally grades nine and ten), classes brought to the library by teachers, and individual pupils from all grades. She believed student use of libraries could lay the foundation for a varied adulthood. The chief librarian at Trois Rivières, Claire Godbout, described how the newly established public library provided a school service for young students at six school deposits tended to on a weekly basis by visiting staff. Joseph A. Brunet, the director of school libraries for the Montreal Commission of Catholic Schools, was optimistic about progress in Quebec, especially in Montreal where books were selected, classified, and cataloged at the head office by a professional staff. Rural schools in Quebec were supplied with grants and small deposits of books for classrooms. He believed the idea of the school library was taking shape and gaining ground each year. Mary Silverthorn, a University of Toronto Library School professor, provided an extensive list of book selection aids. She noted there was reliance on American sources and that “school library work in Canada is hampered by the lack of catalogues and book lists designed for Canadian use.” Dorothy Cullen, the director of the Prince Edward Island Libraries regional system, reported on the various ways its branches and headquarters supplied library service to all the island schools with deposits and books-by-mail. There was also a collection of professional literature for teachers at the regional  headquarters in Charlottetown.

    Summaries of provincial school library developments were also provided. In British Columbia, the Department of Education offered library training in summer school courses for teachers. These teacher-librarians held library positions in graded elementary schools and some junior high schools; however, in high schools only teachers who were also fully qualified librarians were appointed to full-time library positions. The Manitoba Department of Education administered book grants and selection guides: “For the year 1946 books were selected for 1,557 one-room schools and 103 two-room schools, and orders checked for 224 graded schools, thus providing libraries for 2,790 teachers. For these schools 3,798 magazine subscriptions were placed.” A professional library for Winnipeg teachers was located in the reading room of the departmental library, but it was noted that professional training had not kept pace with book distributions. Lyle Evans reviewed her new duties in Saskatchewan and pointed to the successful initiative in a Cupar school district northeast of Regina to establish a core collection of texts, supplementary texts, and reference books for each rural school. A central pooled collection was started in the school unit main office staffed by a teacher acting as teacher-librarian. She felt, “The experiment has been so successful and attracted so much interest that many other units and [school] superintendents have been asking for guidance in organizing school library services in their areas.” Her work justified her enthusiasm about modernization that

The school library, then, provides material to enrich the school curriculum, develops in pupils good attitudes and habits of study, and promotes a lifelong interest in reading for information, recreation and mental stimulation. That is, the school library is an integral part of the educative process, and its objectives are actually identical with those of any modern educational program.

Despite this inspirational rhetoric, school libraries faced a difficult task implementing better conditions. When the Canadian Education Association surveyed school libraries on a province-by-province basis in 1951, it remarked on the general under developed state of affairs:

It will be noted that proportionately few elementary schools have separate libraries; classroom collections for lending and reference are more common. Libraries are found somewhat more frequently in secondary schools, but there too the classroom collection persists. The library collection as a separate and well equipped unit administered by a qualified person as an essential school service, just as gymnasium or cafeteria, has not been developed on an all-inclusive scale.

    Canadian school librarians were not early advocates in supporting progressive ‘modern’ education philosophy. But after 1945, the provision of resources for critical thinking, experimental learning, developing social skills and other worthy features of progressive education came to the fore. Mary Mustard, a prominent school librarian from Brantford, Ontario, declared that a main goal of school library service was “to develop character through desirable book habits” thereby escaping the dull textbook routines of the past. At the CLA School Library Institute held in Winnipeg in June 1949, participants were excited to hear Amelia Munson, an experienced American youth services exponent from New York Library, speak to the issue of ‘Growth Through Reading,’ which offered students opportunities to experience develop personally through the medium of books. In the following year, 1950, a Young People’s Section of CLA was formed, distinct from Children’s Librarians. The new section included public and school library work for teens, and in August 1953 it organized a successful thematic session in Ottawa during CLA’s annual meeting—‘Effective School Library Service.’ Participants learned the effectiveness of any school library was determined by four factors: library accommodation, an adequate collection, a trained librarian, and an appropriate program of activities. Subsequently, in June 1958, the section sponsored a Workshop on Education of School Librarians at Quebec City where Lyle Evans reported on the current state of affairs for teacher-librarian training: “Six provinces regularly offer courses, two offer courses occasionally, and two do not offer any courses.” The workshop registrants concluded national standards were needed to improve training for school library staffing, a task that would take several more years to complete.

    From the outset of the decade and throughout the 1950s, the varied administrative arrangements and finances for schools determined by Canadian departments of education and school boards absorbed the attention of librarians, teachers, and administrators. There were thousands of school boards across the country and the progressive nature of reforms varied a great deal. Traditional pedagogic methods and the 3 R’s were still important. Library proponents were grappling with the organization, staffing, facilities, and collections of school libraries in large bureaucratic provincial structures that were steadily reducing the number of school districts. Although improvements in services would continue to be gradual during the postwar period, nonetheless, after 1950 a national consensus was developing to support better libraries in schools, for formal education programs, and services based on child-centred learning. Many of these issues would be the result in a successful two-day national conference on school librarianship held in Edmonton in 1959 discussed in my previous blog. After 1960, advances in school librarianship would accelerate even as the influence of progressive education itself would begin to face challenges from conservative educators, competing philosophies of education, new media, and rapid technological change.

References

Margaret Fraser, “High School Libraries in Ontario.” The School [Secondary Ed.]; A Magazine Devoted to Elementary and Secondary Education 27 (Oct. 1938): 148–151.

British Columbia Public Library Commission. Manual for Small School Libraries. Victoria: The Commission, 1940.

My blog on Canada Needs Libraries is at this link. 

Lyle Evans, “The School Library in Modern Education.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 3  (Nov. 1947): 29–30.

Mary Mustard,  “Freedom from Textbooks.” Canadian Library Association Bulletin 6 (Sept. 1949): 35, 87.

Books for Youth: Everyone’s Responsibility; School Library Institute Proceedings, June 24-25, 1949, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, 1949.

Edwin Williams and Robert Downs Report on Canadian Academic Libraries, 1962—1967

Resources of Canadian University Libraries for Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences: Report of a Survey for the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges, by Edwin E. Williams. Ottawa: National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges, November 1962. 87 p.

Resources of Canadian Academic and Research Libraries/Ressources des Bibliothèques d’Université et de Recherche au Canada by Robert B. Downs. Ottawa: Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, 1967. 301 p.

By the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, the number of full-time undergraduate and graduate university students across Canada was increasing dramatically, and provincial governments were granting new charters to several universities, such as Victoria, Calgary, Waterloo, York, Guelph, Brock, and Carleton. Additional funding for faculty, teaching staff, and buildings came from federal and provincial governments to accommodate this growth. Consequently, the expansion of libraries, especially collections, formed part of ambitious educational plans, a library phase which might appropriately be termed ‘mid-century modernization.’

Edwin E. Williams Reports on Canadian Academic Libraries, 1963

During this period, library concerns were noted by the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges (NCCUC), which represented university presidents. The genesis of national planning for university libraries grew out of a recommendation by a library committee appointed by the NCCUC to survey academic libraries to evaluate their research capabilities, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Fourteen of Canada’s largest academic libraries, which collectively held almost six million volumes, were selected for the survey. As with many Canadian studies, financing for the study came from the United States. Funds from the Council on Library Resources were secured, and Edwin E. Williams, the Counsellor to the Director of Collections of Harvard University Library, was chosen to conduct the survey. Edwin Williams held many senior positions at the Harvard University library from 1940 until his retirement in 1980. More importantly, he was quite familiar with the Farmington Plan, a national project organized by American libraries to develop a cooperative acquisitions program for foreign materials. His study was conducted through conversations with 211 faculty members, the distribution of a questionnaire to professors on the strength of collections, the compilation of a checklist of 10 periodicals in each of 24 fields in the humanities and social sciences, and personal visits to each university. Williams published his findings in September 1962.

The findings of Williams’ six-week survey were not surprising to informed observers.

Any recapitulation of strong points in Canadian research collections soon makes it evident that, except in Canadian subjects and in mediaeval studies, there are no collections in major fields that are outstanding as a whole — assuming that an outstanding collection is one strong enough to attract scholars from other countries. The collections that have reached this level are devoted to individuals or to comparatively narrow fields — Soviet church-state relations and D. H. Lawrence at Alberta; South China gazetteers and Robert Burns at British Columbia; Kipling at Dalhousie; the psychomechanics of language at Laval; Urdu, Thomas Browne, Noel Buxton, Viscount Hardinge, and Hume at McGill; Icelandic at Manitoba; Bonar Law at New Brunswick; and certain fields of Italian and Spanish drama, plus Coleridge, Dickens, Petronius, Tennyson, and Yeats at Toronto. (p 48)

Williams discovered universities were enthusiastic about the potential of inter-library loan even for undergraduates, a practice he cautioned against because it was not a substitute for strong campus collections. To further serious research, he recommended that the National Library’s Union Catalogue project move ahead more rapidly along with the publication of a union list of serials in the humanities and social sciences. This latter task began in 1963 and was completed in 1968 with publication of Periodicals in the Social Sciences and Humanities Currently Received by Canadian Libraries. He discussed the advantages of strengthening research collections through an undertaking similar to the Farmington Plan, but felt libraries were not adequate to embark on this expenditure on their own. Instead, he suggested it would be more desirable to use “special funds” for specialization that could make inter-lending more effective for postgraduate programs. An extension of existing Canada Council grants would benefit the entire country and allow universities to build their resources using local revenue. To spur cooperation in the development of research collections, the surveyor advised the creation of an Office of Canadian Library Resources in the National Library. The work of this office would allow universities to build substantial collections locally and ultimately serve national research activity. Another benefit would be the ability to compete more effectively in second-hand book markets for significant publications.

Williams declared that it would be expensive to strengthen university library collections, nevertheless, it was a necessary step to further national and regional educational goals. He concluded:

Yet, while foundations are being laid across the country, the National Library ought to move ahead rapidly, and the existing strong collections at Toronto and other Canadian universities should be improved; failure to develop the National Library and to make great collections out of good ones would demonstrate that Canada aspires to be no more than a dependency of other countries in graduate study and research in the humanities and social sciences. (p. 60)

Resources of Canadian University Libraries was enthusiastically received and served as a catalyst for transformative change. When the Canadian Association of College and University Libraries (CACUL) became a constituent part of the Canadian Library Association in June 1963, it assumed a leadership role in representing library concerns. CACUL immediately realized the importance of Williams’ findings and began to liaise with the National Conference of Canadian Universities and Colleges (NCCUC), representing university presidents dealing with the Williams’ recommendations. The new library group advocated for the establishment of an Office of Library Resources, a proposal the NCCUC agreed to support later in the year. Eventually, in 1968, this office came into existence and became part of the collection development branch in the 1970s.

Later, in the fall 1963, when the NCCUC annual conference was held, CACUL successfully secured support for a more extensive national survey of academic libraries to expand and amplify the briefer work of Edwin Williams, which had been limited to library resources for graduate study in the humanities and social sciences. Subsequently, the NCCUC (reconstituted as the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, AUCC) commissioned Professor Vincent Bladen to conduct a study of financing higher education in 1964 to which CACUL made a presentation on the need for greatly increased library funding, especially from the federal government. Also, the CACUL submission advised that 10% of a university operating budget be regarded as a minimum standard for collection purposes. The Bladen Commission adopted the federal proposal for funding in its final report, Financing Higher Education in Canada, in 1965. A year later, in 1966, the Canada Council announced annual funding for university libraries for acquiring research collections which totalled more than $3,000,000 before it concluded in 1969.

 Robert B. Downs Reports on Canadian Academic Libraries, 1967

The AUCC also agreed to launch a more extensive national survey with grants from the Canada Council and the Council on Library Resources in Washington, D.C. Robert B. Downs, the Dean of Library Administration at the University of Illinois, was invited to lead a survey which included three Canadians. Downs had pursued an illustrious academic career and served as President of the American Library Association in 1953–53. His mandate was quite broad: he was charged with assessing library administrative and technical organization, staffing, buildings, collections, and financing to maintain expected growth in the following decade. The Downs report was published in 1967 entitled Resources of Canadian Academic and Research Libraries.

Robert Downs submitted his report with a wealth of information on the current conditions of university libraries. There were 35 tables of data on 43 institutions that revealed marked progress had been made just a few years after the Williams report had landed on many desks; for example, 17 libraries reported adding an annual average of more than 20,000 volumes between 1961–66, a noticeable improvement with immediate postwar conditions, 1945–60. Indeed, 1963–64 marked the first time university libraries collectively began to add more than a million volumes per year to their holdings. Resources studied eleven major areas including administration, technical services, buildings, reader services (reference, instruction, and circulation), mechanization and automation, finances to sustain growth, cooperative activities, collections, special research holdings, and faculty and student views of the library. Downs’ investigation was accomplished by conducting interviews, questionnaires, checklists, and personal observation. A total of 41 recommendations were made, many of which became standard guidelines for professional decision-making for a generation of administrators and librarians. The array of information Downs produced also influenced university administrators because they also believed in the value of higher education and the need for accessibility to satisfactory library resources and services.

Many of Downs’ recommendations seem rudimentary by today’s standards; for example, “for economy, efficiency, and effective service, library administration should be centralized” (p. 2), but the prevalence of 1960s campus departmental libraries and diffused authority warranted this type of review. In the area of automation, which libraries were only beginning to experiment with, Downs could only hint at future directions: “Developments in data processing have made feasible the concept of national and international library networks, offering new approaches to problems of gathering and retrieving certain types of information” (p. 5). The provision of photocopying services, established building standards, the recognition of professional librarians as key members of the academic community, the separation of clerical and professional duties in staffing, the exercise of leadership on the part of the National Library and the National Science Library in fostering cooperation, special grants from the Canada Council, and sharing of library resources on a local, regional, and national basis were all flagged as necessary to encourage growth. Downs reiterated William’s proposal that 10% of an institutional budget should be earmarked for library collections. Especially concerning collections, the report was explicit: “In no case should a college or university provide less than $150 per year for library maintenance for each full-time student. (p. 7). Further, Downs proposed that

Sustained financial support over a period of years is essential to the growth of strong libraries in Canadian universities; additional appropriations totaling $150,000,000 for collection development will be required over the next decade, beyond present budget allotments and the current rate of annual increases, for retrospective collecting, if these libraries are to reach a stage of development comparable to the leading American university libraries. (p. 6)

One interesting section of Resources that sparks interest now reveals student attitudes to 1960s libraries. Students did not prefer study halls and often brought their own books for study purposes. They indicated more reserve books were needed, assistance from staff was inadequate, and material was in another library elsewhere on campus. For their part, faculty suggested stronger research collections, staff specialists for collection development and reference, speedier processing and access to acquired materials, duplicate copies of books in frequent demand, improved inter-library loans, more efficient circulation systems, and, in a direct conflict with Down’s recommendation, more departmental libraries, especially in the sciences.

The Down’s report was well received. It became the subject of a conference—“Libraries for Tomorrow”—held in Montreal in April 1968 that the AUCC and CACUL convened to discuss the future of Canadian academic libraries. About seventy librarians attended, and papers were presented on future financing by Robert Blackburn (Toronto) and general trends in higher education by Basil Stuart-Stubbs (British Columbia). Although this meeting, subsequent discussions, and library reports on standardization and financing by the AUCC did not constitute a comprehensive review and working plan for the implementation of the Downs Report, many of its recommendations were taken to heart across Canada’s burgeoning university sector. In 1967, Downs concluded that “despite their rapid progress, the Canadian university libraries, on the whole, will require years of concentrated effort to bring their collections up to a high point of excellence.” (p. 224), and by 1971, there were six libraries with more than a million volumes: Toronto, McGill, British Columbia, Western, Montreal, and Laval.

For CACUL members, the report highlighted an area of significance that Downs was known for: his support for academic recognition of librarians. “In the case of college and university libraries, the institutions that will be most successful in attracting and holding able staff members are those where librarians are recognized as an integral part of the academic ranks, a vital group in the educational process, with high qualifications for appointment, and all the rights and privileges of other academic employees (p. 110).” When Downs compiled his survey, academic librarians were subject to various terms of service and methods of appointment. He suggested enlisting the support of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) to improve and standardize the status of university professional librarians, an approach adopted by CACUL that was to prove beneficial in gaining status for librarians and creating a common community of interest with faculty during the 1970s.

However, future economic conditions in the 1970s, namely, rising costs and slower growth, often referred to as ‘stagflation,’ would curb the rapid development of university libraries. Along with increasing rates of inflation, administrators faced new challenges, such as providing resources to support Canadian studies, automated bibliographic control, computerized searching, and sharing information through networking on a national scale. Libraries had to contend with the ‘information explosion’ as books and journals flooded the scholarly marketplace. New university programs were launched that often lacked adequate library resources. New faculty appointments were made, although it was difficult to support their specializations. The advent of cross-disciplinary programs required new library resource fields and services. The 1970s would be just as challenging as the 1960s, because  expectations exceeded eroded revenues. Observers of retrenchment in the decade following the Downs report often refer to a ‘golden age’ of university growth in the 1960s that had passed.

The reports by Edwin Williams and Robert Down were valuable reviews of current conditions and helpful guides to future action. As well, the reports heightened awareness and visibility concerning library needs in Canadian higher education. The two authors provided an astonishing wealth of information about collections, contemporary conditions, and potential costs of funding improved services. But there was no master national plan envisaged. While CACUL and CAUT assumed leadership for professional librarian concerns, the AUCC and senior university officials, together with library directors, were ultimately responsible for encouraging and implementing local progress. For the most part, the efforts of these groups and individuals were successful.

The Williams Report is available on the Internet Archive.

The Downs Report is available on the Internet Archive.

The Canadian Library Association is Formed, June 1946

Canadian Librarians Organize in 1945

When the Second World War ended in summer 1945, the long-awaited time for creating a national organization for Canadian librarians, trustees, staff, and anyone interested in libraries had arrived. For almost four years, the Canadian Library Council (CLC), headed first by Charles Sanderson, Toronto Public Library, and then by Margaret Gill, National Research Library, had been planning for the establishment of a national association on a membership basis. There was general agreement that a country-wide association to promote library interests and a national library to provide services that were not currently available to Canadians were both essential. Earlier in the year, in April, the Council had set up specific committees to prepare concrete proposals concerning an organizational meeting and a constitution to be adopted by provincial library associations during summer and autumn 1945. Another  measure, a national survey of libraries to ascertain existing conditions and future library needs was also brought forward for action.

Afterwards, Elizabeth Homer Morton, the CLC executive director working from the National Research Library, crisscrossed the country to seven provinces to discuss matters, such as the national association, inter-library cooperation, and the proposed library survey. By the end of 1945, all seven provincial associations had approved the main CLC resolution. General sentiment favoured an association based on personal membership open to anyone interested in libraries. Because the American Library Association was due to convene in Buffalo in late June 1946, Canadian organizers decided that their meeting should be in proximity to allow for attendance at both conferences. The CLC formed an activities committee under the direction of Freda F. Waldon, Hamilton Public Library, to determine the scope of the proposed organization. Her colleague, Marget Meikelham at McMaster University, began arrangements to host the first meeting on her campus. Thus, the stage was set for an initial founding conference in Hamilton from Friday, June 14th, to Sunday, June 16th, 1946.

The theme selected for the organizational conference was Libraries in the Life of a Nation. The advance program featured two keynote addresses on national issues: the Liberal cabinet minister, Secretary of State Paul Martin, speaking on National Unity and Citizenship and Dr. Luther Evans, Librarian of Congress, speaking on The National Library in the Life of the Nation. As well, several workshop meetings with consultants; private meetings of individuals with mutual interests; a meeting of the new Executive; an assembly vote to create CLA; and the setting up of national committees were also features. Then, some members would be free to travel to Buffalo to attend ALA.

Convocation Hall in McMaster University Hall

Canadian Librarians Meet in Hamilton, June 1946

The CLC met in Hamilton on June 12–13 at the Royal Connaught Hotel on King Street to review the activities of 1945/46 and make final preparations for the conference. Then, Margaret Gill opened the conference for delegates on Friday morning in Convocation Hall. “I hope that you all feel as I do, that this is really a very thrilling occasion. The older librarians will know that this is the culmination of a great many years of effort to give Canada a national library association. There have been various attempts in the past, and they have not succeeded in getting beyond the very first stage of good intentions. Today and tomorrow we are going to see something more effective. Both the weather and the reception we have had at McMaster indicate that we are well on the way to a good start.” Gerhard Lomer (McGill University) followed with a speech on the background of events leading up to the proposed national organization. Then, a panel discussion on the Canadian library scene was held to inform members about the state of libraries nationwide.

The Friday afternoon session was given over to concerns about the proposed CLA constitution, financial affairs, and proposed CLA activities. Delegates made an important addition to the draft constitution by insisting that its title be bilingual before leaving for a tour of the Hamilton Public Library. Later in the evening, two speakers addressed delegates. C. Cecil Lingard, chief librarian at Regina, spoke about the role of UNESCO and its potential for change. Canada was a founding member of UNESCO, which came into being later in 1946. Paul Martin, the federal MP representing Windsor and Secretary of State for Canada in the Liberal Cabinet, emphasized the political and cultural importance of national institutions. Because Canada exhibited many different ethnic origins and regional disparities, “it is not surprising that in this country, despite our pride in our heritage, we find ourselves less unified than many of us would like.” He fully supported the work of librarians and the need for a national organization. “Your organization can assume an important role in developing a sense of Canadian unity. Through your work in the community you can bring knowledge of other communities. You can help explain to one part of Canada what other parts of Canada are like. You can contribute to the basic understanding that our fellow citizens, wherever they live, are much the same. They have the same objectives, they want the same guarantees and the same securities.”

Librarians resumed discussion on the constitution on Saturday morning before the announcement of the slate of officers for 1946/47.

President: Freda Waldon, Hamilton
First Vice-President:  W. K. Lamb, University of British Columbia
Second Vice-President:  Joseph Brunet, Montreal Catholic School Commission
Treasurer:  Hugh Gourlay, Edmonton
The current members of the CLC were elected councillors for one year pending the election of 1947.

The Saturday afternoon was given over to eight workshops on particular interests: (1) work with film collections, (2) library building design highlighting the London Public Library opened in 1941, (3) effective organization of library services, especially along regional lines, (4) Canadian reference tools, (5) cataloguing for the nation highlighted by a talk by Rev. Robert J. Scollard, St. Michael’s College, Toronto, who stressed the need for a National Library to take the lead in classifying, bibliographic control, and cataloguing for all Canada, (6) the possibility of library services from community centres, and (7) young person’s interests. Another session, held by the Canadian Association of Children’s Libraries, formed in 1939, decided to ask the CLA executive to establish their group as a distinct section of the new association. Sheila Egoff made a presentation on radio programming for children, and Jean Thompson, Toronto Public Library, was elected chair of this group for 1946/47.

For the evening session, Dr. Luther Evans described the evolution of the Library of Congress, touching upon one of its main responsibilities: “the complex of problems connected with mastering the devices to make these constantly increasing books and documents, sound recordings and motion pictures, newspapers and manuscripts, accessible to scholars and general readers.” Regarding the collections, he alluded to the need for work on a national basis, “co-operation that must inevitably be spearheaded by a leading agency such as a national library.” Loud applause erupted at the end of his speech and Dr. Evans told the audience that if they did not stop clapping, he would give another speech. The evening session concluded with the showing of three library films and discussions about the possibility of using films for public relations programs.

The general conference closed on Saturday night with an address by CLA’s first president, Freda Waldon. She kept her remarks short. “I just want to say that I am very conscious of the honour you have done me and very apprehensive of the responsibility that goes with it. I can only say that I will do my best, and I hope that I shall not let you down after the splendid leadership you have had from Miss Gill.” She finished by saying, “I feel that this conference is a challenge to us and an historic occasion and I do hope that we shall be able to make it go. We have just got to make it go.”

By all accounts, CLA-ACB was off to a successful start. The transition from the Canadian Library Council to the new association was a testament to the leadership, vision, and hard work of a dedicated few, such as Elizabeth Homer Morton, who had moved to Ottawa from Toronto to become secretary.  National goals were being developed and a small (300) membership base slowly expanded. The new executive and CLC councillors departed for ALA in Buffalo on Monday morning where they would meet again. Americans were hopeful that a national organization could be formed and traditional ties with Canadian members would be maintained. The CLC would continue in existence until the new association was incorporated. This eventually took place in December 1947 when W.K. Lamb was CLA president.

During its first CLA executive-council session in October 1946, a dinner meeting was held in Toronto with representatives from learned societies and national organizations. Of course, the principal topics were plans for a national library and a joint brief to the federal government. Shortly afterwards, a brief, A National Library for Canada; A Brief Presented to the Government of Canada, was prepared under the sponsorship of the Canadian Library Association, the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Political Science Association and the Social Science Research Council of Canada. It emphasized services rather than a new building housing an extensive collection. It is the subject of my earlier blog published in 2021. 

Although it was not officially incorporated, the new association had immediately assumed all the activities of the older CLC and its executive office in Ottawa. Its primary pursuit after 1947 was a national library, and for this reason CLA-ACB repeated its ideas again in another brief in 1949, The National Library of Canada, Its Eventual Character and Scope that I discussed in an earlier blog. Although it took several years, in 1952 the National Library Act was passed by the Canadian Parliament, becoming law in January 1953.

A biography of Freda Waldon is available on the Ex Libris Association website.

A biography of Margaret Gill is available on the Ex Libris Association website.

The Morton Years: The Canadian Library Association, 1946–1971 can be read free at the Internet Archive by creating an account.

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 2023

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.
 

The Norman Lidster Film of the Fraser Valley book van in 1932

Norman 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 bookmobile in Fraser Valley, 1945

 

The National Film Board film The 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. Gudrun 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

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.