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.

Professionalization and Librarianship in Ontario, 1920–1975

There is general agreement that librarianship is a profession (or semi-profession), distinct from an occupation. Over time, it has constructed its diverse character in Britain, the United States, and Canada. For five decades until 1975, librarians in the province of Ontario sought to emulate the popular ‘trait model’ of professionalism to institutionalize legal recognition and to secure advanced social status. I believe these attempts to achieve a distinctive status may be characterized as a ‘professional project,’ the process whereby an occupation seeks to institutionalize legal recognition and improve its social standing.

The Trait Theory and Professionalism

The trait theory comprises common characteristics that Ontario librarians felt were useful in the identification of a profession in the early part of the 20th century, attributes such as:

• A formal education process for entry into a profession;
• A base of specialized knowledge, skills, and training used in work;
• Ethical principles and standards guiding practitioners;
• A service commitment in the performance of duties;
• Self-regulation by a recognized professional organization.

Ultimately, efforts by Ontario librarians were unsuccessful and they had turned away from the trait features by the mid-1970s. They were able to realize some characteristics, such as advanced educational standing and a service orientation; however, the small total number of librarians, their fluctuating leadership goals for self-regulation, and the provincial government’s preference to rein in the authority of professions became decisive barriers to achieving formal professional status. I wrote at length on this period of history in a paper published in Library and Information History more than a dozen years ago, in 2012. Complete details are available as a PDF at this link: Professionalization and Librarianship in Ontario, 1920–75. A summary review of the pursuit of the trait theory after 1920 illustrates there were difficulties in establishing unity due to conflicting goals, gender issues, a relatively small cohort of participants, and institutional constraints of a ‘managed profession’ among the four groupings (schools, special and public libraries, as well as college and universities). These issues were major constraints in securing the collective goal of a self-regulating body of professional librarians sanctioned by provincial legislation.

There was significant progress in identity formation, to be sure, during 1920–75. In the immediate decade following the First World War, librarians loosely structured the idea of a profession. Ontario was a small library stage offering few roles outside Toronto. The most notable feature of librarianship after 1920 was the predominance of young, university-trained females, a feature Mabel Dunham addressed in her Ontario Library Association (OLA) 1921 presidential address that was the subject of my earlier blog post in 2022. After the establishment in 1928 of a one-year academic program at the University of Toronto, women were drawn in growing numbers to library positions created in Ontario, thus forming the argument that librarianship was a ‘woman’s profession’ beset by low pay and inferior prestige. Still, library science remained a comparatively small field of study compared to other disciplines. An undergraduate bachelor’s degree (BLS) and eventually by 1970 a master’s degree (MLS) became established standards for entry into the profession. After the Second World War, the Ontario Department of Education linked provincial grants to public libraries with certification of librarians to recognize higher educational standards. Certification was regarded by public librarians as a step forward in seeking professional status; however, it ceased in 1972 after the viewpoint that professional standards were maintained by the entrance requirements of graduate library schools and by accreditation reviews by Canadian and American library associations prevailed.

IPLO Act 1963

As the number of university-trained graduates increased, an OLA Professional Committee was formed in 1955. This group provided the opportunity to advance the cause of professionalism. By 1960, the Institute of Professional Librarians of Ontario had incorporated as a separate entity (IPLO), attracting librarians working in all types of libraries. Its stated aims were: (1) to promote library service and increase public interest in its professional aspects; (2) to raise the standard of library services by defining and upholding standards of professional qualifications; (3) to promote the prestige, welfare, and interests of librarians; and (4) to cooperate with other organizations with similar objectives. IPLO reserved membership for qualified librarians according to its constitution. Its attempt to form a professional body with potential licensing and self-monitoring for librarians occurred when there was tremendous expansion in Ontario’s schools, universities, and colleges. On the other hand, many new library associations began to represent the interests of librarians, thus diminishing IPLO’s membership drives on a province-wide footing. The Institute never registered more than 500 members. As interest dwindled, it eventually disbanded in 1976. Reliance on the trait theory of professionalism had run its course. Greg Linnell gives a complete account of IPLO’s history in a 2008 article at this link: IPLO.

The 1960s and 1970s were a time of major societal and economic change. For librarians, who now embraced the term ‘professional librarian,’ perhaps the most important issues were the adoption of intellectual freedom principles, gender considerations, collective bargaining, and the proliferation of library associations. As well, there was more clarity about the roles of professionals and non-professionals in libraries. Library technician graduates from new community college programs assumed many tasks formerly undertaken by librarians. The challenge of automation and information technology would result in the formation of ‘systems’ departments and employment of IT experts within libraries. These trends absorbed the attention of librarians resulting in a declining concern about professional status.

Traditionally, librarians were conservative voices in censorship debates because they were salaried employees and decisions usually were beyond their control. They seldom spoke out in opposition to controversies related to book selection. ‘The right book for the right reader’ served as a watchword for decades. Substituting a good book for a bad book was a common rationale when controversies arose. Too often, however, the stance of neutrality shielded the common practice of using restricted shelves for objectionable (but legally published) books. These attitudes began to change after the OLA adopted a statement on intellectual freedom in 1963. By doing so, the association was confirming a new role for librarians that would eventually lead to annual campaigns promoting Freedom to Read.

When second-generation feminism began to take hold after the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Canada published its report in 1970, female librarians began reconsidering their place in the profession. Often, women were being passed over for major positions and the phrase the ‘four-fifths majority’ gained adherents who demanded merited promotions, improved salaries equal to male counterparts, and benefits such as maternity leave. These were issues that would continue to be wrestled with for some time. The gender underpinning of librarianship has been regarded as a significant factor contributing to the lack of recognition of librarianship as a profession in many studies. Still, its effect in transforming policies and improving working conditions in libraries after 1975 is undoubtedly more important. Librarians jettisoned suspicion of unions and began to embrace public sector collective bargaining in public libraries, the post-secondary sector, and schools.

A New Search for Professionalism after 1975

The ‘type-of-library’ organizational preference developed in the 1960s became entrenched in the 1970s as OLA and CLA restructured to better serve members’ interests. New associations were professionally tailored towards careers in colleges and universities, public libraries, special libraries, and schools. Librarians’ interests began to centre on personal professional development in local settings instead of a more collective profession on a provincial scale that IPLO had exemplified. Librarians began to pursue individual, discretionary claims to professional status by utilizing concepts associated with other information-management professionals and integrating these ideas within librarianship. A new model with identifiable characteristics and advantages would need to be created for professionalization to prevail. Collectively, from 1920 to 1975, some achievements, such as consensus about formal educational qualifications or intellectual freedom, had laid the foundation for better educational qualifications and principles that continue to resonate in librarianship.

From the 1970s to today it is possible to discern a new ‘discretionary’ or ‘alternative’ model of professionalism and collective identity that is adaptable to individual preferences and different types of organizations where librarians are employed. The features of this type of professionalism include:

• the evolution of an educational framework from library science to library and information science;
• acceptance by librarians of their inherent diversity shaped by ‘type of library’ activities and variety of clientele;
•  the retention of collective bargaining that took hold in the 1970s;
•  the acknowledgement of the integration of organizational work in libraries with other professionals possessing different credentials;
•  a commitment to the principle of intellectual freedom;
•  informal recognition of common aspirations identified by library associations;
•  a personal autonomy built upon knowledge, skills, and common bonds of the profession. 

There has been an increasing tendency for all professionals to work in bureaucratic organizations in the public and private sectors in the late 20th century—hospitals, government, corporations, libraries—instead of remaining independent. In The System of Professions in 1988, the sociologist Andrew Abbott placed librarianship within a grouping of information professions. Librarians work in conjunction with other professionals who perform different types of work within organizations that recognize multiple credentials. This flexible conceptualization turns its back on formally adopting characteristics associated with the trait theory of professions by proposing a ‘federated’ framework. Certainly, librarians share some common goals with information scientists, archivists, and records managers. It seems one constant is that librarians will continue to adjust their vision of professionalism to the expectations between an individual’s perspective in an informal community devoted to librarianship and their identification within an organization.

Special Libraries Organize in Montreal and Toronto, 1930–1945

Bank of Canada Library, Research Dept., Ottawa, c.1944

 Special Libraries in Canada

The special library was amongst the first libraries to appear in 18th century Canada with the creation of a small book collection in the l’Hôpital général de Québec in 1726. In the early 19th century, important collections were established in Montreal, such as the Advocates’ Library (1828) and libraries for the McGill College Medical Library (founded 1829) and the Natural History Society (founded 1825). Other libraries were developed for prominent legal, literary and scientific organizations in the following decades: the Quebec Literary and Historical Society (founded 1824) in Quebec City, the Law Society of Upper Canada and the Royal Canadian Institute established by mid-century in Toronto. In the first decades of the 20th century, growth continued to serve more formal organizations such as the Academy of Medicine (1907) in Toronto, which came under the direction of Margaret Ridley Charlton, and the Royal Bank of Canada (1913) in Montreal. Throughout this lengthy period, of course, government libraries built significant collections in provincial legislatures and in Ottawa.

The concept of a special library—collections and staff to serve governments, businesses, professional groups, public institutions such as hospitals, and a wide variety of organizations—coalesced in the early decades of the 20th century, especially after the formation of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) in 1909 in the United States and the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (1924) in Britain. The primary aims of the special library ‘movement’ in these countries generally focused on services to collect and evaluate current publications and research; to organize relevant written, unpublished or peripheral information; and to assemble and disseminate publications, information, and data (often in abstract or memorandum form) to advance individual or group work within organizations. In an era when most American and British librarians were concerned with public library progress, special librarians focused on the information process within their organization. They paid particular attention to the needs of their users, often employing non-traditional methods not taught in library schools.

Special librarians shared some ideas in common with an early 20th century European field of study, ‘documentation.’ Documentalists were concerned with any type of record and or evolving technology with the potential for providing pertinent information to further the aims of an organization or researchers. They were especially interested in building scientific indexes, the organization of subject literature, and the techniques of improving information retrieval. But, for the most part, special librarians remained oriented to providing typical library reference service through their usual resources. Indeed, this trend is evident from the activity in Canadian special libraries and publications of leading figures before the end of the Second World War.

In Canada, special library work was in a nascent stage. When American special librarians came to meet in Toronto with the American Library Association convention at Toronto in June 1927, William O. Carson, the Ontario Inspector of Public Libraries, wrote in the summer issue of Special Libraries, “If there is any definition of a special library which includes all that it is and excludes all that it is not, I have never heard it.” He went on to elaborate saying, “Speaking frankly the special library ideal has not taken hold in this country in a large way; that is, we have not gone far in the establishment of highly specialized, representative collections of books and related material, organized and operated according to the niceties and exactitudes of modern library science.” In the same June issue, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission in Toronto reported a typical library activity: keeping engineering staff posted on new developments, routing of government reports and technical publications to departments for circulation, and maintaining about 90 journals and the publications of 30 technical societies in a growing library that used the Dewey Decimal classification. Another contributor, an economist from the Royal Bank in Montreal, emphasized the importance of maintaining library data from current sources related to railroad earnings, freight loadings, automobile production, newsprint, steel, flour, as well as employment and building statistics, in order to make accurate assessments for banking executives.

Special Library Growth in Montreal and Toronto

In the late 1920s, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto were emerging centres where special library work was becoming more important when businesses and government were expanding. There was a marked increase in libraries serving insurance, banking, and other commercial enterprises, along with the development of legislative and departmental libraries at the provincial and federal levels. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics Statistical Survey of Canadian Libraries in 1929–30 identified 59 government and 59 special libraries each as separate categories. Special libraries were “commercial and technical libraries, which include those of business corporations as well as those belonging to historical or scientific societies, law societies, literary and art organizations or those of a similar nature,” and reported holdings of 464,885 items. The three largest special libraries reporting more than 25,000 items were the Royal Canadian Institute in Toronto, the New Brunswick Provincial Museum in St. John, and the Royal Society of Canada in Ottawa. In its next survey, 1930–31, the federal department combined the two groups and reported there were 132 government, technical society, and business libraries with 2,292,899 volumes, which combined represented 31 percent more books than public libraries. The vast majority of these books, of course, were held by governments, with the Library of Parliament alone holding 400,000 volumes.

Some notable librarians in the 1930–31 survey for Montreal would reappear over the next decades: Maréchal Nantel (Advocates’ Library), Olive B. Le Boutillier (Art Association of Montreal, now the Montreal Museum of Fine Art), and Mary Jane Henderson (Sun Life Insurance). Nantel was a lawyer, writer, historian, librarian of the Bar of Montreal, and a prominent figure in the Société des Dix for many years. Olive Le Boutillier was active in Montreal art circles for many years. Mary Jane Henderson became a driving force in special library work in Montreal and a familiar face in the SLA. After earning a BA at Queen’s University in 1925, she acquired a BLS from the Library School at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, in the following year. Then she gained experience as a cataloguer at Columbia University and joined SLA’s New York Chapter before returning to Montreal in 1930 to organize Sun Life’s investment library. She was inducted into the SLA Hall of Fame in 1964 in recognition of her service to the profession.

In the decade of the 1930s, despite the setback of the Great Depression, Montreal was the business and financial metropolitan centre of Canada. At this time, cooperative efforts were greatly encouraged, and at the beginning of 1932, a small committee of special librarians meeting at McGill University decided to form a special libraries chapter of the SLA. Mary Jane Henderson, the librarian of Sun Life Assurance Company, became their leader and was elected president of the Montreal chapter at its first meeting on May 9, 1932. There were 19 members at this time and the first project the chapter chose was to publish a Directory of Special Libraries in Montreal in 1933 that detailed hours of opening, personnel, volumes, periodicals, telephone, and other operational details. The chapter’s quarterly Bulletin first appeared in January 1935 edited by Beatrice V. Simon, the McGill University medical librarian. As its membership grew, the chapter requested SLA hold its annual convention in Montreal. The 28th annual conference of the Special Libraries Association was held in Montreal at the Mount Royal Hotel in June 1936. Henderson was in charge of organizing local arrangements and organized a successful program under the theme, “Putting Knowledge to Work,” for the 1936 conference, which was the subject of my earlier blog.

The Montreal chapter participated in the inter-provincial library conference in Ottawa in 1937. Members from the Ontario and Quebec library associations held a session on cooperation between public and special libraries. Beatrice Simon, McGill University Medical Library and Mildrid Turnbull, the Royal Bank of Canada librarian in Montreal, spoke about efforts to avoid duplication and to use interloan. T.V. Mounteer, from the Bell Telephone Co. in Montreal, reprised his address on cooperative opportunities between industrial libraries and educational resources of the public library, a speech later published earlier in Special Libraries.

Although it appeared that the outbreak of war in 1939 would halt the progress of library growth, in fact, in early 1940, three librarians formed a plan to establish an SLA Toronto Chapter: Pauline Mary Hutchison, librarian of Canada Life Assurance, Peter Morgan, librarian of the Confederation Life Association, and Allan McKenzie, librarian of the Canadian Bank of Commerce. They called for a meeting in May where ten people approved a decision to request chapter status, which the SLA approved that summer. The first regular meeting of the chapter was held at the Staff House of the Toronto Public Library on September 17, 1940, with Pauline Hutchison as the chair. The organization soon attracted new members, among them George A. Johnson (Law Society of Upper Canada), Edna Poole (Academy of Medicine), Grace Pincoe (Art Gallery of Toronto, now Art Gallery of Ontario), and Allan McKenzie of the Canadian Bank of Commerce.

Toronto Daily Star April 15, 1943

 The chapter’s first bulletin was published in January 1941, and a wartime project, the Air Force library, began in January 1943. Members, under the direction of Mary Silverthorn and her Royal Canadian Air Force Women’s Division Committee, sorted and arranged books in the division depot and collected, by purchase and donation, hundreds of other books and magazines, both technical and recreational that were sorted and catalogued at the Confederation Life Association and returned at the depot for distribution. The chapter’s wartime meetings continued with some prominent speakers. Grace Pincoe spoke on the Art Gallery of Toronto collection and its activities and Margaret Avision, who later became a distinguished poet, spoke about “Everything about Something” and her work at the Canadian Institute of International Affairs Library in the later stages of the war before she accepted a position at the University of Toronto library. Marie Tremaine spoke on “Can you tell me? Please,” a thoughtful piece on typical reference work with the public she experienced at the Toronto Public Library. She would become one of the founding members of the Bibliographical Society of Canada in 1946.

By the war’s end, the DBS Survey of Libraries for 1946–48 indicated the progress of all groupings of special libraries after 1930. There were now 173 in total: 83 federal and provincial, 36 business, 13 law, 22 technical and professional, and 19 ‘other’ (e.g., libraries for the blind) with a reported 110 trained staff in library science. The initiative and enthusiasm of the two Canadian chapters, active forces in Canadian librarianship, could reasonably be credited for some of this growth. These chapters attracted members in smaller Canadian cities and in western Canada from Winnipeg as far as Victoria and Trail, BC. In the postwar period, they would participate in a series of joint regional conferences with the SLA’s Western New York Chapter in 1947–49. Several years later, in 1953, the Toronto Chapter would host the SLA annual conference in Toronto.

My blog post on the 1936 Special Libraries conference at Montreal is available at this link.

In 2003, Margaret Ridley Charlton was designated as a person of national historic significance.

Some useful publications during this period include:

Marvin, Donald M. “Relationship of the Library and Research Departments to the Bank.” Special Libraries 18 (Sept. 1927): 215–219.
Nantel, Maréchal. “The Advocates’ Library and the Montreal Bar.” Law Library Journal 27 (July 1934): 75–97.
Mounteer, T.V. “The Special Library: Partner in Industrial Education.” Special Libraries 27 (Nov. 1936): 298–301.
Morgan, Peter. “On Becoming a Special Librarian.” Special Libraries 28 (March 1937): 87–90.
Le Boutillier, Olive B. “The Clipping File in an Art Library.” Special Libraries 31 (April 1940): 131–132.
Pincoe, Grace. “A Trip to Study Methods in American Art Museum Libraries.” Bulletin of the Toronto Chapter, Special Libraries Association 2 (May 1942): [3-4].
Saunders, Janet F. “Development of the International Labour Office Library.” Special Libraries 33 (Oct. 1942): 290–294.
“The Special Library in Canada.” Wilson Library Bulletin 19 (Nov. 1944): 195–197.
Saunders, Janet F. “S.L.A. International Relations.” Special Libraries 35 (Dec. 1944): 490–493.
McKenzie, Allan. “Should Fiction Be Encouraged in Special Libraries?” Special Libraries 36 (June 1945): 147–150.
Lewis, Grace S. “Library of the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Ottawa, Canada.” Special Libraries 36 (Oct. 1945): 358–360.
Pratt, Phebe G. “School of Social Work Library.” Special Libraries 37 (April 1946): 115–117.
Pearce, Catherine Anne. “The Development of Special Libraries in Montreal and Toronto.” MS in LS thesis, University of Illinois, 1947. She was president of the Montreal Chapter from 1941–43 and worked in the United States after the war.

 

Pre-Confederation Public Libraries in Canada West/Ontario, 1841–1867

In 2007, I made a presentation at the Canadian Library Association in St. John’s on the development of public libraries in Canada before 1867. This period, for the most part, has been dominated in historiography by the growth of mechanics’ institutes. By the middle of the 19th century in the Province of Canada (the provinces of Ontario and Quebec after Confederation, 1867) many people were borrowing books from libraries located in a variety of local organizations, such as library associations, mechanics’ institutes, and Sunday schools. Some groups, such as the Toronto Mechanics’ Institute, Quebec Library, or the Montreal Mercantile Library Association, were incorporated under separate laws in the 1840s. Increasingly, legislators recognized the need to enact enabling public legislation regulating the establishment, holdings, and activities of dozens of existing and potential new libraries. The impetus for public libraries came from three sources.

Egerton Ryerson’s district school libraries for children and adults

Egerton Ryerson was the first to encourage the free-of-charge tax-supported public library concept with his Common School Act of  1850. This Act authorized the establishment of ‘district libraries’ in Canada West (later Ontario) by providing for libraries in ‘common’ (public) schools. Ryerson followed up by publishing extensive regulations in 1853 to cover book selection, provincial grants, the appointment of librarians, circulation records, and reports to the Dept. of Public Instruction he superintended. These libraries were free public libraries, i.e., there was no charge at the point of access, tax funding was authorized, and universal access for children and women (not just adult males) was encouraged. However, the location in school houses often mitigated book use by adults and after two decades local support for these libraries had greatly diminished.

The Library Association and Mechanics’ Institute Act of 1851

A second legislative effort came in 1851 when Robert Bell, a Member of Parliament for Lanark (Ontario), introduced a bill to facilitate the formation of mechanics’ institutes and library associations. His law (and subsequent similar acts in other provinces) contained influential ideas about public libraries. It recognized that a public library would be available to persons through voluntary decisions, not mandated legal regulations.  The Library Association and Mechanics’ Institute Act of 1851 established that libraries would be governed by local boards of trustees mostly independent from control by municipal politicians, a ‘special purpose body’ in modern public administrative terminology. Further, the Act provided public recognition of libraries as incorporated bodies through public legislation, thereby creating the opportunity for provincial grants in the public interest to supplement local fundraising efforts. However, unlike the Ryerson scheme this legislation did not stipulate public funding, although permissive Legislative grants were made to dozens of institutes and associations (as well as combinations of both) until 1858 when funding ceased due to an economic downturn.

Two Unsuccessful Canadian Public Library Bills in 1852 and 1866

A third stimulus for legislative initiatives took no notice of free libraries in schools or subscription libraries in associations and institutes. This development attempted to emulate the establishment of free public libraries in the United Kingdom and the United States. There is evidence for this trend shortly after 1850. Canadian efforts focused on the establishment of free library service by municipal corporations which were encouraged by the famous Baldwin Act of 1849. This important legislation permitted the incorporation of cities, towns, villages, and townships governed by locally elected councils across Canada West. William Henry Boulton, the Conservative member for Toronto in the Legislative Assembly, introduced a bill in 1852 which was essentially identical to the public library act passed by the American state of Massachusetts in the previous year (1851). His bill was premature: at this time, only a handful of municipal corporations existed in Canada West and in Canada East (Quebec) there was no general municipal legislation until 1855. The bill was not read a third time and died at the end of the parliamentary session. Later, in 1866, when support for Ryerson’s scheme had wanted and mechanics’ institutes were experiencing financial difficulties, Alexander Morris, a Liberal-Conservative member for the riding of Lanark South, sponsored novel legislation that supported the establishment of free public libraries by municipalities but also allowed a role for potential donors to contribute to the support and management of a semi-independent board. However, because a political union of Canadian colonies was well underway, Morris’ bill was discharged in August 1866 at the end of the Province of Canada’s last Parliament (1863–66).

Throughout this period, subscription libraries (often called library associations and occasionally in Canada social libraries) were established in all Canadian colonies. These ‘public libraries’ were accessible to all residents of a community (mostly males) but not generally free because they required voluntary payments. They performed a public function but were not agencies of the state. For the most part, the Canadian historiography of the subscription library has emphasized its social role as a prototype, a stage towards the development of the modern free public library. However, given the per-Confederation efforts to establish free libraries in schools and the abortive bills of 1852 and 1866, it can be seen that the subscription library was less important as a model for public funding and more important as an exemplar to establish the public library’s local roots by its identification with a sense of community, by its reliance on boards of management composed of citizen trustees, and by its example that access would be on a voluntary basis.

My article on proposed public library legislation for the Province of Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) in 1852. The bill was originally published in Ex Libris Association Newsletter 42 (Fall 2007): 15–18. See my earlier blog post on William Henry Boulton.

My article on public library legislation that was not passed by legislators of the United Canadas in 1866. Originally published in Ex Libris Association Newsletter 44 (Fall 2008): 10–13. See my earlier blog post on Alexander Morris.

For my revious post on Egerton Ryerson and his public libraries in schools, click here.