Canadian Library History Blog

In the early stage of the public library movement in Ontario, after the Free Libraries Act came into force in 1882, there were no standalone public library buildings. The concept of the Canadian public library as a public building—a building type in its own right—was in its infancy. Of course, architects and librarians could refer to purpose-built American or British buildings, but these normally were in metropolitan cities supported by sufficient private philanthropy and ongoing municipal tax support. The four 'large' populated Ontario cities in the census of 1891 were Toronto (181,220), Hamilton (48,980). Ottawa (44,154). and London (31,977). Of these smaller cities, three would undertake to establish a separate building before 1895. These communities would generally follow Anglo-American ideas concerning library purpose, public access, book storage, and user needs (such as separate reading rooms) within a single structure. The proper arrangement of space for the needs and ...

College and university education evolved slowly in the Canadian Maritime provinces before 1900. By the time of the First World War, Dalhousie was the most prominent university in the region. Established in Halifax in 1818, it began to expand after 1911 when it relocated to the more spacious Studley campus where much-needed new buildings could be constructed. By this time, two other smaller, distinguished liberal arts universities had also gained prominence: Acadia in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, and Mount Allison in Sackville, New Brunswick. Acadia was established in 1838 and began to grow in the early 20th century. Mount Allison, founded in 1839, was noted for being the first university in the British Empire to award a bachelor’s degree to a woman as early as 1875. Collections at all three institutions were relatively small. When James Bain reviewed library progress across Canada in 1895, he reported that Dalhousie (college) held 20,000 volumes, Mount Allison held 4,500 volum...

Before the Second World War, there was only one standalone university library building in the Canadian west. The University of British Columbia library opened in 1925 on the Point Grey campus in Vancouver under the direction of John Ridington. However, with the post-1945 increase in student numbers, including returning war veterans, overcrowding at three Prairie universities led to development plans to transfer and consolidate library collections from various academic buildings into a separate, central library. University collections had grown incrementally across each campus, and at mid-century, Manitoba held almost 250,000 volumes, Saskatchewan about 125,000, and Alberta almost 150,000. These were relatively large holdings in a Canadian context and were comparable to academic libraries of a similar size in Ontario, such as Queen’s or Western, which had erected buildings in the interwar years, the Douglas (1924) and Lawson (1934) libraries. With the increasing pressure to develop rese...

Over the course of twenty years, in the 1950s and 1960s, libraries at the University of Toronto continued to expand and improve as they became collectively the most extensive university holdings in Canada. The library system, under the leadership of Robert Blackburn, also refined its philosophy concerning the necessity for a centralized research collection to serve the needs of graduate studies. During this period, the architectural styles of the Modern Movement and new construction technologies utilizing steel, glass, and concrete also broke with past practices. In 1954, the Sigmund Samuel Library (SSL) was constructed using Queenston limestone adjacent to the original library building with the Samuel family crest above the entrance. The coat of arms in stained glass above the entrance had been granted to the Samuel family by Oliver Cromwell in 1670. When the John P. Robarts Research Library was completed in 1973, the humanities and social science collection was transferred to the new...