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.

National Meeting on Canadian School Libraries and Librarianship at Edmonton (1959)

Proceedings of the Library Service in the Schools Workshop, University of Alberta, Edmonton, June 26–27, 1959. Ottawa: Canadian Library Association/Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques, September 1959. 59 p.

Canadian School Libraries before 1950

Although there were hundreds of Canadian school libraries by the mid-19th century, these were primarily small, informal classroom collections managed by busy one-room teachers. As they developed in the first decades of the 20th century, larger elementary school libraries remained underfunded and relied on access to small classroom collections. Students often used children’s services supplied by public libraries (notably Toronto Public Library) or bookmobile services from regional or county libraries, a system patterned on British practice which offered the advantage of recreational reading. Separate centralized libraries in schools, distinct from public libraries, began to appear first in the secondary school sector, a model influenced by American experience that emphasized direct connections with school authorities and formal educational programs. In the 1930s, the efforts of energetic librarians, such as Joseph A. Brunet, the director of school libraries for the Montreal Catholic School Commission, Arthur Slyfield (Oshawa), Margaret Fraser (Galt, now Cambridge), Mary Mustard (Brantford), and Isabel McTavish (Vancouver), began to spur development by advocating better facilities and collections, encouraging student use of libraries, initiating regional surveys, and publishing handbooks for students,

In the immediate postwar period following 1945, there was more government emphasis on improving services with the appointment of supervisors in departments of education: prominent librarians such as Lillian Evelyn (Lyle) Evans in Saskatchewan in 1946 and Hélène Grenier in the Montreal Catholic School Commission in 1952. During this period, the Young People’s Section of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) addressed many problems related to school libraries; nonetheless, progress seemed to unfold at a snail’s pace. When the Canadian Education Association surveyed the nation‘s school libraries in 1951, it revealed their underdeveloped state; for example, in Nova Scotia, “most of the schools in the province have book collections, but more than half of the 554,187 volumes in individual schools are felt by the Department [of Education] to be of little value.” Several years later, in 1958, when the Dominion Bureau of Statistics published a major survey of elementary and secondary schools in communities of 10,000 and over, it received responses from 200 school boards in 123 centres representing 2,951 schools. The survey revealed that only 1,058 schools (about a third), with a total pupil enrollment of 668,680, operated centralized libraries. Total stock amounted to 2,898,780 volumes or 4.5 volumes per pupil. Fully trained staff, with teacher training and library training to a degree level, was concentrated in intermediate or junior high schools and secondary schools, where 129 professionals supervised 270 libraries.

Canadian Library Association Meeting on School Libraries in 1959

To spur activity, CLA initiated action to plan a national workshop on schools to bring together leaders from seven national associations: the Canadian Association of School Inspectors & Superintendents, Canadian Book Publishers Association, Canadian Education Association, Canadian Home and School and Parent-Teacher Federation, Canadian School Trustees Association, and the Canadian Teachers Federation. CLA aimed to prompt discussion on problems of mutual interest and to allow participants to become acquainted personally. It was hoped that specific ideas arising from this first national workshop would encourage the sponsoring organizations to hold future sessions on specific subjects. The two-day workshop was held at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, in June 1959. The 195 registered delegates included school superintendents, principals, school board and public library board trustees, and public and school librarians. Formal presentations and separate discussion groups dealt with different topics. In general, the entire workshop was themed around providing resources, training librarians to provide services, and how services could best be organized.

Nancy Day, the Supervisor of Library Services in the South Carolina State Department of Education and former President of the American Association of School Libraries in 1954–55, addressed a general session on Friday morning with her topic, “The Place of School Library Service in Education.” She emphasized the importance of recognizing the library as part of the curriculum where learning and learning skills occur. Librarians should select materials, provide reading guidance, and encourage the use of the collection. It is imperative to have someone who knew the collection, the curriculum, and how to work with both children and teachers. Several freewheeling discussions on various issues took place in Friday afternoon breakout groups. There was a sharp division of opinion between school superintendents and librarians about how best to develop libraries initially. The former believed there was a more urgent need to get more books into the schools, their view being expressed as ‘books before librarians.’ The public library’s role in providing student resources also came under scrutiny. Many delegates felt the responsibility for libraries in schools should come under a Department of Education. Public library activities should encourage school libraries but not directly provide the services, even though some school officials tended to expect such assistance. There was a shift in thinking towards supporting the need for education officials to direct and fund libraries distinct from public libraries. Although cooperation was stressed, there was skepticism that public and school libraries could be combined successfully. There was general agreement that a certified teacher with some professional library training would be the ideal staff for a school library; but for larger schools, a professional librarian with a BEd could best work with teachers. Generally, delegates favoured the centralized library, a dedicated space available to all students which could also supply and refresh classroom collections and support provincial curricula.

On Saturday, Dr. Marion Jenkinson of the University of Alberta Faculty of Education gave an excellent summary of four topics that every group wrestled with. First, the approach librarians utilized to student reading was essential: the librarian viewed children individually, not as part of a classroom pattern. Second, improvements in teacher training were necessary. Thirdly, although there was an air of prestige bestowed on reading, often readers were derided as ‘eggheads’ or ‘squares.’ The Alberta professor declared, “We have to turn the TV image into the feeling that the reader is the ‘best sort of guy to be.’” Fourth, the issue of teacher training was paramount:

Teacher training is not adequate. Elementary teachers frequently receive only seven months training. Here librarians can help in advising in the training. Librarianship is a graduate profession; in the elementary schools there is need for a graduate teaching profession. In a graduate programme for teachers, there should be courses in children's literature. (p. 51)

Dr. Jenkinson stated that teachers, interested groups, and parents should work cooperatively with librarians and education officials in their local communities. She concluded by stressing the need to clarify important issues. There should be more concise definitions about school library work: (1) identify the function of the teacher-librarian as opposed to the children’s librarian; (2) clarify the purposes of different branches of library services; (3) articulate the basis for the selection of books; and (4) establish priorities in school library service. At the end of the workshop, delegates adopted two resolutions: they requested the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (DBS) to conduct a representative survey of libraries in publicly operated schools, and they asked for the Wilson Education Index to include the periodical, The Reading Teacher, in its indexing service.

It is difficult to assess the impact of the 1959 national workshop, but there is no doubt that the pace of school library progress quickened in the 1960s when provincial governments reduced the number of school districts and strengthened financial revenues. The DBS began surveying school libraries on an annual basis and by 1964, the Bureau reported that there were 2,595 centralized libraries staffed by 263 full-time professional school librarians. When Leonard Freiser was hired as chief librarian by the Toronto Board of Education in 1960, he began developing a centralized education center to provide resources for teachers and students in separate libraries in schools independent from Toronto Public Library. In Quebec, Alvine Bélisle became the provincial director of school libraries within the Department of Public Instruction in 1961. During 1961 the Canadian School Library Association (CSLA) was formed as a separate CLA division. The Association soon began publishing a lively quarterly newsletter, the Moccasin Telegraph. It also launched a national award in partnership with Encyclopaedia Britannica for elementary school libraries in 1967. School librarians also organized a Workshop on School Library Standards at the annual CLA conference held in Toronto in June 1965. Two years later, in 1967, Standards of Library Service for Canadian Schools was published. However, by the early 1970s, it was evident that in terms of facilities, personnel, and collections, school libraries for the most part did not meet the 1967 standards.

The meeting in Edmonton also allowed school librarians to network and develop professionally. Laurence Wiedrick, a teacher-librarian at Eastglen Composite High School in Edmonton, began teaching library studies at the University of Alberta in 1964. Another attendee, John Wright, librarian at the Aden Bowman Collegiate in Saskatoon, was appointed Supervisor of School Libraries for the Saskatchewan Department of Education in 1963 and later became president of CSLA in 1967. His colleague, Lyle Evans, followed him as CSLA president in 1969. Many other teachers, librarians, and administrators returned home to continue improving reading, teaching, and learning in elementary and secondary schools. A national consciousness and community of interest had been created on an inter-provincial scale. The delineation of fundamental issues was an essential ingredient in fostering progress in the subsequent decade. The recognition of the need for better-quality, modernized school libraries was an important (and lasting) outcome of the workshop.

Egerton Ryerson’s Public School Libraries, 1850—1876

Egerton Ryerson, n.d.

In February 2007, I made a presentation on the common school library system that Egerton Ryerson established for Canada West (after 1867 Ontario) after he became Superintendent of Education in 1844. Ryerson, of course, is considered to be the founder of the Ontario school system and a leading Canadian figure in 19th-century education. And he is also a central figure in the development of ‘free’ public libraries in Canadian history. Before Ryerson launched his library scheme in 1853, subscription libraries created to serve specific groups dominated the public space across the southern part of Canada West. Adults could access libraries for a fee in a variety of organizations designed for a diverse clientele such as mechanics’ institutes; literary, agricultural and scientific societies; community library associations; and mercantile or commercial groups. But for rural residents, who comprised the majority of the population, access to books could be a difficult proposition. Ryerson recognized this problem and concluded that libraries, i.e. school district libraries, should be supplied through the growth of the school system he was establishing. Similar systems existed in the United States and in the Maritimes to provide reading for adults and school children. In his 1847 Report on a System of Public Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada, he outlined his library plan,

I mean the establishment of Circulating Libraries in the various Districts, and as far as possible in the School Sections. To the attainment of this object, local and voluntary co-operation is indispensable. Government may perhaps contribute; it may assist by suggesting regulations, and recommending list of books from which suitable selections can be made; but the rest remains for individual and local efforts to accomplish. And the advantages of the School can be but very partially enjoyed, unless they are continued and extended by means of books.

Over the course of his superintendency, hundreds of school libraries were formed and hundreds of thousands of books were delivered to local communities through the agency of a Book Depository which was established in Toronto. It offered discount prices on books. But, eventually, with the expansion of the frontier in Ontario and population growth, urban communities found public school libraries less attractive to an alternative appearing in Britain and the United States—free municipal public libraries. As well, the government was helping fund another source of library books in hundreds of mechanics’ institutes and frequently petitioned by a small, developing book trade to abolish the Depository’s monopoly. Nevertheless, Ryerson stood his ground, and the school libraries he created and nourished remained in place until the Depository closed in 1881 and the Ontario Legislature passed the Free Public Libraries Act in 1882. The original presentation lasted about a half hour with questions afterwards and follows below.

There is no commentary in the MP4 video of the PowerPoint presentation I made in 2007. It is about a 20-minute read, and viewers should adjust the settings to the slowest slide speed, i.e., 25 seconds.

Regarding the conclusion, there was some discussion at OLA, so perhaps a bit more information would be helpful for viewers. The concept of models is often used in historical explanations. The concept of ‘state formation’ has become important in the colonial experience of Canada West, 1841–67. State formation is the process whereby governing bodies during the period of growing responsible government and public institutions (such as libraries) exercised greater regulatory powers. In this development, government gained greater authority over the urban and rural populace ensuring the advance of liberal democratic rule and inculcating moral, cultural, and economic values aligned with capitalism. Bruce Curtis wrote on this topic four decades ago: “‘Littery Merrit,’ ‘Useful Knowledge,’ and the Organization of Township Libraries in Canada West, 1840–1860,” Ontario History 78, no. 4 (1986): 285–311. He concluded that while libraries were believed to promote certain ideals, such as literacy, his research indicated that few adults read the books supplied through Ryerson’s system because book selection was centrally controlled and officially excluded much published literature through the agency of the Book Depository. If the Dept. of Public Instruction sought to make the populace more governable, there must be some doubt about the successful role of the Ryerson system.

It seems, too, more difficult to make the case for another useful model, social control. Social control was a popular topic in library history and education, especially in America, beginning with the revisionist histories of the 1970s. There are many articles concerning its pros and cons due to its imprecise nature. Did Ryerson set out to use libraries to structure controls around public reading as well as provide moral instruction? It is a good question, yet the success of his scheme often relied on local responses, so it is fair to say that there was not just compliance but collaboration in building libraries. Also, there were many limitations to the concept of social control in library history: the degree of general public acceptance, the different levels of public usage, and opponents, especially booksellers or reluctant politicians and taxpayers.

A third model, the one I followed in my Free Books for All: The Public Library Movement in Ontario, 1850-1930, is less structured, libraries as a social movement. In short, people and groups from all sectors of the population organize formally or informally to support and produce societal or political change. Ryerson’s system displays a political characteristic of liberal democracy: a partnership between central and local authorities with the aim to establish public institutions. The central body instructs and local bodies supply the services. The political values are efficiency and participation in representative, responsible government. In time, a successful movement will eventually diminish because its objectives are mostly achieved and into woven into the fabric of government. Thus, the government sponsorship of libraries and universal public access that Ryerson espoused fits this general context until about 1930 when all the major cities and towns in Ontario had established free library service through local plebiscites.

Another influential Canadian historical thesis, the ‘liberal order framework’ proposed by Ian McKay, asserts that liberal-minded politicians and business leaders successfully shaped the nation’s consensus around individualism, private property and capitalist accumulation. This thesis is influenced by the Marxist philosopher, Antonio Gramsci, who developed the concept of cultural and social hegemony that reinforced the power of dominant classes. In this political environment, the impetus to create libraries would come from powerful individuals or groups seeking to legislate-regulate libraries and public reading by a ‘top down’ process. Gramsci is an important representative of Western Marxism.

The ongoing application of new models and theoretical approaches to library history may inject alternative views of the library system Ryerson developed over a quarter-century. Certainly, the recent development of Critical Librarianship, which strives to examine librarianship and library structures in relation to systemic ideologies, offers an opportunity to re-investigate power/knowledge relationships identified by Michel Foucault. For example, his formulation of ‘governmentality’ (governing people’s conduct through positive means) offers a theory of examining power relations in a different way. The prospect of other approaches looms in the future, but these were not part of my 2007 presentation.

Further information on my history of free public school libraries in Canada West can be viewed on the Internet Archive in my  Free Books for All: The Public Library Movement in Ontario, 1850-1930 published in 1994.

Marshall McLuhan speaks to Ontario librarians about books and reading, 1954–56

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, 1945

By the mid–1950s, prominent speakers had become a fixture at Ontario Library Association (OLA) annual conferences. Such was the case in mid-May 1956 when the OLA met at Oshawa’s new McLaughlin Library, which had opened in 1954. This OLA conference was shortened to two days because the Canadian Library Association would meet at Niagara Falls in June. Nevertheless, four hundred and twenty-five persons registered; it was one of the best attended conferences to date. A notable attraction was an emerging University of Toronto professor at St. Michael’s College, Marshall McLuhan. He addressed delegates about “The Future of the Book” at a luncheon on May 16th at the St. Andrew’s United Church in downtown Oshawa.

McLuhan had found an American firm, Vanguard Press, to publish The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man in 1951. In The Bride, he analyzed popular printed resources (e.g., comic strips or visual images in magazine/newspaper advertisements) as agents of social communication and public persuasion rather than transmitters of content. He theorized that readers typically perceived messaging so casually that they failed to notice how it influenced their thinking about lifestyles and social norms. McLuhan believed the form of communication was a very significant force that shaped public awareness because it merged technology and sexual themes in persuasive way, hence the title of his book. The Bride’s short chapters could be read in any order—a method that allowed McLuhan’s readers to concentrate on one topic or skip to another section, much like dialing a radio to find a good program.

The St. Michael’s college professor spoke to librarians about his interpretations of the effect of movies and radio on books. Now television had become another challenge. These electronic media engaged the public in new, different ways; for example, the outcome of elections was less predictable now. But McLuhan felt the future of the book was assured; in fact, every type of media enriched books. All media, including books, are the means of translating one kind of experience into another. Books were an early stage of the mechanization of the written word. Now, television and radio were adopting an electronic mode of operation or production of words. Books allowed readers, in a linear fashion, to delve deeper into knowledge and presented a greater diversity of subjects. Nonetheless, McLuhan believed the public’s perception of the electronification of information was becoming as important in transmitting knowledge through printed media.

R.H. King Collegiate library, 1954

McLuhan’s message was well received at a time when libraries and educators were grappling with the growth of mass media, primarily television and radio, which reached into homes across the nation. In their own right, libraries were important sources of print medium that conveyed detailed information. Indeed, it was the second time the theorist spoke to Ontario librarians in less than two years. The School and Intermediate Libraries Section of OLA invited him to its meeting at the R.H. King Collegiate Institute in Scarborough on Saturday afternoon October 30th, 1954. Margaret Scott was the head librarian at the R.H. King’s library, which was considered a comfortable, modern setting for students. She would later become an associate professor of school librarianship at the University of Toronto Library School. Scott was an active member of the School and Intermediate Libraries section, which dated back to the 1920s to annual OLA ‘round tables’ of librarians and teachers interested in the reading and use of books by young adults. The OLA had formalized this section in 1935 to represent librarians in secondary schools and public librarians interested in young adult reading. Librarians believed libraries to be places where ‘good’ books could be found to counter the effect of mass-produced ‘bad’ books that teens could purchase at local retailers or exchange among themselves.

“The Hazards of Reading” formed the theme of McLuhan’s afternoon session at R.H. King. Despite the spread of electronic mass media in the 20th century, he remained an advocate for book culture. When he asked, “What is the essential core of Book-Culture that is worth preserving?” he was suggesting that a ‘core library’ could be assembled to preserve and make accessible humankind’s knowledge. An informed personal perspective was necessary to remedy the ill effects of standardized advertising and messaging presented in various mass media. Book reading had an effect quite different from the competing media. He made the interesting observation that students come to the classroom “loaded with facts.” The need was not to supply more facts but to help them articulate what they already knew—to help them orient themselves in the midst of the conflicting cultural media surrounding them. McLuhan emphasized the need to study the impact of the new media of communication on the older book culture. His post-presentation comments raised many interesting points; however, questions had to be cut short before the closing school hour.

McLuhan’s Mechanical Bride did not reach the bestseller lists or sweep through the halls of academia. Nor did libraries undertake to assemble ‘core’ collections to represent humankind’s knowledge for their clientele. Later, especially in the 1960s, McLuhan achieved celebrity status with a series of popular books: his phrase “the medium is the message” became the source for many programs, discussions, and articles. Television was a ‘cool’ medium requiring attentive listeners/viewers. He claimed electronic media were supplanting print culture, that the book as a package might become ‘obsolete’ unless it adapted to the new media. His communication theories often seemed to be at odds with the promotion of library service through books. Many, such as Canada’s National Librarian, W.K. Lamb, refused to believe that the book was obsolete. Yet, McLuhan’s use of this hot-button word pointed more to an outmoded technology rather than decay and non-usage. Public librarians especially wondered whether the media prophet’s proclamation that books were ‘hot’—i.e., there was less engagement by the viewer/reader than ‘cool’ TV—helped promote the community services they were offering. Being regarded as a book provider was not so hot to many librarians who pointed to the importance of other library formats, e.g., films and recordings.

All the same, McLuhan was never a foe of public libraries or print culture. The library was a primary print resource, and librarians were reliable mediators in selecting, organizing, and storing information. In fact, he composed a manuscript with co-author Robert Logan in the late 1970s, which eventually was published in 2016 many years after his untimely death at age 69: Robert K. Logan and Marshall McLuhan, The Future of the Library. Before the virtual or digital library existed, McLuhan hoped libraries would better engage their clientele with new electronic media. His message was hopeful because he believed the book would become an information service rather than a mere package on library shelves. Library resources and the range of services also could change in the same fashion. With the establishment of the ‘digital library’ by the first decades of the 2000s, McLuhan’s optimism about books and libraries expressed many years before beforehand at his two OLA sessions appears well-founded.

Further Reading:

Logan, R., K., McLuhan, M. (2016). The Future of the Library: From Electric Media to Digital Media. New York: Peter Lang.

Neill, Samuel D. “Books and Marshall McLuhan.” Library Quarterly; Information, Community, Polity vol. 41, no. 4 (October 1971): 311–319.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My blog on Egerton Ryerson's school libraries is at this link.

Louise Riley and Jack Brown Theses on Libraries during WW II

Mutual Relationships between Public Libraries and Schools in Providing Library Service to Boys and Girls in Canadian Cities (Columbia University, M.A. thesis, June 1942, 113 p. with tables) by Margaret Louise Riley and The Extension of Public and School Library Services in the Province of Alberta (University of Chicago, M.A. thesis, August 1940, 161 p. with tables and map) by Jack Ernest Brown.

Margaret Louise Riley was born in Calgary and educated there at St. Hilda's High School for Girls. She attended McGill University and received her library diploma at Madison, Wisconsin in 1928.  After graduation, she worked at the Calgary Public Library as a children's librarian throughout the 1930s. Riley's articles on library work for children and teens helped her attain a Carnegie Fellowship and she graduated from Columbia University Library School in 1942. Her thesis, Mutual Relationships, dealt with the subject of cooperative work by school and public libraries in Canada and contains many insightful details about the standing of Canadian school librarianship in the early 1940s.

Jack Ernest Brown was born in Edmonton in 1914 and graduated from the University of Alberta with a B.A. in 1938. He attended McGill University Library School, receiving a B.L.S. in the following year. Brown was awarded a Carnegie Fellowship and graduated with a MA from the University of Chicago Graduate Library School in 1940. His thesis focused on the development and administration of public and school library services in Alberta but is seldom referenced.

Children's librarianship was a well-established public library service by 1930. Louise Riley introduced a room for young adults readers and enthusiastically improved Calgary's children's library at a time when money was hard to come by during the Depression years. It was during the 1930s when schools in Alberta, and elsewhere in Canada, began to develop a "new program" in elementary and junior high schools that emphasized the use of many books rather than rote learning and use of  one class text. Because many elementary school libraries were deficient (or non-existent), students and parents often turned to public libraries to secure good reading. This practical consideration inspired Riley to research cooperative educational efforts between schools and public libraries. At the same, she became know for her story hours broadcast on the city's local radio station. Her thesis at Columbia examined the relationships that were being developed in Canadian cities with more than 10,000 population (52 in total) through the use of questionnaires and a literature search of leading professional opinions about school-public library cooperation.

Riley's detailed compilation and analysis of statistics received from across Canada yielded useful information about the state of children's work in 1940. For example, larger city pubic libraries were open for children on average from 20-40 hours per week and the average number of books per registered child ranged from 1.5 to 2.2 books/borrower. Fifteen school boards were developing centralized school libraries, an option many library planners favoured, especially in the United States where Riley was working on her master's thesis. Data on classroom libraries, children's sections in public libraries, and public library branches in schools were included. There were twenty-six tables in all.

Mutual Relationships explored solutions for cooperative efforts to improve children's work. Riley surveyed the experience of American and English libraries and presented the advantages and disadvantages of similar Canadian efforts especially inter-board representation on school and library boards, public library branches in schools, and cooperative administration of school libraries. Often, the crucial element missing was leadership at the local level. Based on her findings, Riley recommended conducting local community surveys and devising a cooperative plan for discussion and eventual implementation. She suggested the newly formed Canadian Association of Children's Librarians (1939) and Canadian Library Council (1941) could provide assistance in developing cooperative work.

Riley's conclusions did not surprise many informed librarians and administrators. However, the data she presented was the first Canadian study of its kind that buttressed many arguments about school-public library cooperation. It was another instance of the use of social science methodology to study libraries and demonstrate the value of "library science." Of course, Mutual Relationships was confined to cities--smaller communities, rural places, counties, and regions were not included. The thesis was a practical exploration of an issue that would continue throughout the 20th century and be resolved locally in many different ways.

Louise Riley returned to Calgary Public Library to develop children's services after graduation. One successful effort was the establishment of general reading sections with visiting librarians to advise student readers in some schools which was financed by school board grants. She became Calgary's Assistant Librarian in 1949, served as President of the Alberta Library Association, taught courses for children's librarianship for teachers at the Calgary campus of the University of Alberta, and authored an award-winning children's book, Train for Tiger Lily (1954). Louise Riley died in 1957 and shortly afterward a new branch library in Hounsfield Heights was named in her honour.

Jack Brown's thesis at Chicago was centered on Alberta where about sixty percent of the population lived in rural conditions. A plan for the extension of library services through schools and public libraries based on governmental, economic, educational and social conditions was his primary aim. He made a lengthy study of Alberta's geography, its educational system, municipal and school authorities, and economic conditions. It was a time when Edmonton and Calgary were small cities under 100,000 population and when agriculture and cattle ranching were dominant economic activities.

Brown applied the concepts of 'modern service' and 'efficiency' to Alberta's library scene in a thorough manner by stressing the educational role of public libraries and the development of regional systems. Brown surveyed the province's public libraries and found that only 30.3% of the total population of 772,782 were served by libraries and only 8% were actually registered borrowers. Half of Alberta's book stock resided in Edmonton and Calgary and the per capita expenditure on libraries based on total provincial population was fifteen cents. School libraries were at a rudimentary level. Larger school divisions held the promise of better funding but these were only in the initial stages of development. One successful venture was the small travelling libraries and 'open shelf' system operated by the University of Alberta's Extension Department.

Brown concluded that the existing public library 'system' was completely inadequate and suggested that cooperation between rural sections and urban communities should be adopted and promoted by an independent appointed provincial library agency. He strengthened this argument by reviewing British Columbia's pioneering effort in the Fraser Valley as well as American library organization in Vermont where regional services were introduced on a voluntary basis during the Depression. Brown was particularly impressed by work in California where county library systems and city libraries were supervised by the State Library. By 1940, California's system of county libraries and city libraries had reached 98 per cent of the state's population and had been adopted by many other American states. Brown also provided a brief account of the coordinated system of rural and larger centralized libraries in Denmark.

Using his findings, Brown adapted international library planning to suit Alberta's needs. To remedy the permissive nature of current library legislation, he suggested establishing an independent provincial library agency to supervise and coordinate an integrated public library and school library system based on larger units of service. Brown presented the idea of eleven districts each with a headquarters and branches, a reasonable tax base, populations in excess of 20,000, and areas ranging from 3,000 to 6,000 square miles to minimize the problem of distance. He knew that his divisions were personal decisions, not necessarily ones that a potential provincial agency and new library director might implement. However, Brown stated "If a public library system were established in each of the eleven regions, then approximately 80 per cent of Alberta's population would receive public library services (p. 154)." His specific recommendations, which were shared by other Alberta librarians, were never put into action; however, an Alberta Library Board was formed in 1946 and eventually, after passage of a new library act in 1956, the process of establishing regional libraries began, first in the Lacombe (now Parkland) regional library and area similar to Brown's "District 2" centered in Red Deer.

Jack Brown returned to Edmonton Public Library after graduation, establishing the popular street car branch library that was publicized in the January 1942 issue of Library Journal. Shortly thereafter, Brown left to work at the New York Public Library until 1957 when he returned to Canada as chief librarian with the National Research Council in Ottawa. At the NRC, Brown oversaw the development of a National Science Library for Canada in the 1960s and in October 1974 a new library building opened with a new title: the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information. He retired from CISTI in 1978 at a time when a national information system had become a practical reality. Jack Brown passed away in 1996.

The two theses by Louise Riley and Jack Brown were completed when Canada was at war—not a reasonable time to expect any action to result from their publication. However, Mutual Relationships and The Extension of Public and School Library Services marked another step in the direction of the application of more rigorous scholarship to Canadian library issues and planning that had begun in the late 1930s. As well, they both recognized that public library work and school libraries were closely linked, a plan adopted from British practice that would eventually be supplanted after 1945 by the American system of independent school libraries that were the responsibility of educational agencies and local boards of education.

Further Information

View the 1942 Paramount Pictures video of the Edmonton's Street Car Library on the Internet Archive.

Read about Margaret Louise Riley's career at the Ex Libris Association

Read about Jack Brown's career at the Ex Libris Association