Canadian Library History Blog

Contested Spaces: A Critical History of Canadian Public Libraries as Neutral Places, 1960–2020 by Whitney Kemble. Sacramento, CA: Litwin Books & Library Juice Press, 2024. Whitney Kemble, a librarian at the Scarborough Campus of the University of Toronto, has contributed an important work in the growing field of ‘critical librarianship’ about the contentious issue of ‘library neutrality’ in public library event bookings from 1960 to 2020. She has identified thirty-three controversial events held in Canadian public libraries using various resources, such as contemporary newspaper articles. Although eight gatherings were cancelled, the vast majority of events took place. There are too many episodes to discuss in this review; still, readers will likely remember more recent events, such as the 2017 cancellation by Ottawa Public Library of the controversial film, Killing Europe , which examined terrorist activities, street riots, a migrant crisis, and societal polarization. Another ins...

Jessie Robson (Mrs. Austin) Bothwell and the Saskatchewan Library Advisory Council, The Problem of Controlling the Reading of Undesirable Periodical Literature . Regina: Saskatchewan Library Advisory Council, 1946. [A Brief presented to Saskatchewan Library Advisory Council on November 25, 1946; reprinted in the Ontario Library Review 31, no. 2 (May 1947): 125–136] By 1950 romance comics were very popular with teenage girls Undesirable Publications in Canada In the immediate years following WW II, the mass production and distribution of cheap publications, such as comics, pocketbooks, magazines, and tabloids, quickly became a new phenomenon facing Canadians. At the same time, the issue of adolescent development, youth culture, and juvenile delinquency came to the fore. The rapid spread of youthful preferences in fashion, popular music, sports, vocabulary, dating, and reading attracted the attention of parents, teachers, home and school associations, religious organizations, women’s gr...

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. The bill's sponsor, Alexander Morris, was a Liberal-Conservative member for the riding of Lanark South (Canada West now Ontario) in the Legislative Assembly. The text of Morris' 1866 bill, discharged in August 1866 at the end of the Province of Canada's 8th Parliament (1863-66), is included at the end. Morris supported the concept of free public libraries but also allowed a role for potential donors to contribute to the support and management of  local libraries.  A biography for Alexander Morris is at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website at this link .     Bill: An Act to Authorize the Formation of Free Libraries [Mr. Alexander Morris] [read a second time on 7 August 1866 and then discharged] Whereas it is expedient to grant...

My article on proposed public library legislation for the Province of Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) in 1852. The bill was essentially identical to the public library act passed by the American state of Massachusetts in the previous year, 1851.  It was not read a third time and died at the end of the parliamentary session. Originally published in Ex Libris Association Newsletter 42 (Fall 2007): 15-18. The bill was introduced by William Henry Boulton, the Conservative member for Toronto in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. Boulton had also served as Mayor of Toronto from 1845-1846. Boulton's biography is at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography website at this link . The Bill, numbered 75 for the session of the 4th Parliament of the United Canadas, was premature free public library legislation. At the time of its first reading only a handful of municipal corporations had been formed in Upper Canada (Canada West). Lower Canada (Canada East) had no general mu...

Libraries in the Life of the Canadian Nation. Part I, Public Libraries: An Interim Report Presented to the Organizational Conference of the Canadian Library Association by the Canadian Library Council, Inc., June, 1946 . Canadian Library Council, 107 p. Libraries in the Life of the Canadian Nation  pointed the way to postwar planning by cooperatively planning services on a regional basis in many rural areas where there were no libraries or by federating small services (especially the ubiquitous 'association public library') that could not develop effective, expanded, progressive library services. The CLC had been formed to create a Canadian library association across the nation, a bilingual organization that would proselytize a course of action to develop library services and advocate for a National Library in Ottawa. To this end, its small, capable executive, led by Margaret Gill from the National Research Council, Ottawa, organized a national meeting at McMaster Univers...

Newfoundland Royal Commission 1933: Report. William Warrender Mackenzie, 1st Baron Amulree, chair. London. H.M.S.O., 1933. vi, 283 p., maps. The Newfoundland Royal Commission, 1933 Important advances were made in Canada in the 1930s by the provision of Carnegie grants for public library development in British Columbia, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. However, in Newfoundland library development was sparked by economic hardship and an entirely different investigative process. At the beginning of 1900, Newfoundland remained a Crown Colony of the British Empire and did not achieve the status of a self-governing Dominion until 1907. The capital, St. John's, had the misfortune of seeing its Carnegie promise of $50,000 for a free public library, made in June 1901, lapse despite the best efforts of a prominent judge, Daniel W. Prowse, who successfully lobbied for passage of a Public Libraries Act in 1902 (2 Edw. VII c.20). Although a city library board was established, early ...

The Public Library in Canada in Relation to the Government by Jean E. Stewart. Chicago: Fellowships and Scholarships Committee of the American Library Association under the direction of the Graduate Library School, University of Chicago, 1939. 106 p. and map. Vancouver Sun 4 June 1938 Following the completion of a number of Canadian library studies during the Great Depression, there was increasing interest in the formation and development of library services, especially in public libraries. The need for better planning at the political level, stable tax-based financing, improved staffing, increased coordination, and a broader perspective applied to services was more evident. Academic interest in library aspects related to the social sciences was also beginning to develop. The Dominion Bureau of Statistics had collected and published information on the growth of library service for a decade and a half. Now, the opportunity to analyze libraries rested on a firmer basis. The observati...

Gerhard Lomer, Report on a Proposed Three-year Demonstration of Library Service for Prince Edward Island. Montreal: McGill University Library, 1932. 52 p., illus, folding plan. Nora Bateson, The Carnegie Library Demonstration in Prince Edward Island, Canada, 1933-1936 . Charlottetown: Prince Edward Island Libraries, 1936. 52 p., illus. with an Appendix: The Public Library Act (assented to April 4, 1935; p. 50-52). Nora Bateson, Library Survey of Nova Scotia . Halifax, Department of Education, 1938. 40 p., map; with an Appendix: An act to provide for the support of regional libraries: p. 40. Nova Scotia Regional Libraries Commission,  Libraries for Nova Scotia , 2nd rev. ed. Halifax: the Commission, 1940.12 p. The Depression in Maritime Canada presented enormous obstacles to library development. This period did, however, spur important new thinking about how public library services could be established and maintained by public funds and management. As the n...