Ontario Public Libraries, The Internet, and the Digital Library

After 1980 library mechanization in Ontario's public libraries gave way to more rapid changes in terms of automation, i.e., the systematic control of repetitive library operations by electronic equipment and programs that reduced the need for human involvement. Computers and management information software began to make possible the term “knowledge workers.” Public libraries started using computers to circulate books, track patron overdues, and provide instant information on the status of books. North York offered the New York Times in on-line format. By November 1977 the complete text of Toronto’s Globe and Mail was being published online, “Info Globe,” which also became immediately available for online searching and retrieval for library subscribers. For some time, the University of Toronto Library Automated System (UTLAS) provided libraries across Canada a computerized system with catalogue copy for books and a database of holdings that could be used for resource sharing and conversion to computer output microfilm catalogues. It was an exciting time for users and a complex one for administrators and trustees.

With the advent of automated systems, the potential of networking for cooperative projects was broadened. Over the course of two years, the Ontario government funded two important technological related library conferences. The first, a futures symposium, Libraries 2000, was held at Toronto in 1985. Speakers ranged across a wide territory to explore the society, economy, and technology that Canadians would likely experience in the years ahead. Frank Feather, who often elaborated the theme “Thinking Globally, Acting Locally,” spoke to the issue of the need to transition to an electronic environment. The American futurist, Marvin Cetron, predicted that information would become more expensive and possibly the preserve of large corporations charging fees. However, he was optimistic about the public library’s future. Two years later, in 1987, the Province planned another conference at Toronto: The Electronic Library, a deliberation on “second-generation” products for library automation. The era for upgrading or purchasing more sophisticated, expensive, integrated successors to “first-generation” equipment had arrived. Conference topics were quite technical: online catalogs, information searching, public access, and the right to information were more nuanced library issues beyond the public library sector itself. One speaker talked about the intelligent catalog of the future, one that could perform a search and offer a suggestion for the searcher to consider, “Give me more like this!”

The success of Libraries 2000 and The Electronic Library served to highlight the concepts of “paperless systems” or “information age.” A major theme was the need for an effective system to organize information on a community basis with a view to free electronic retrieval and distribution. “Information” was becoming an ubiquitous term used interchangeably with concepts long associated with print culture, i.e., knowledge and ideas. Advocates insisted that it could empower people by supplying resources for better decision making. Pessimists believed that the global economic structure that information supported could ultimately displace individuals and communities with authoritarian structures. The capacity to strengthen both administrative centralization and decentralized production of content seemed to be taking place. New groups and audiences were in the process of creation, e.g., electronic mail groups or the MTV generation.

The Impact of the Internet in the 1990s

Towards the end of the 1980s, librarians and trustees from local municipal libraries and the Ontario Library Association (OLA) began to think in terms of devising a strategic plan for all Ontario. It was now possible to think realistically about the creation of a provincial database—an inventory of public library holdings for access and use at the local level which could be used directly by patrons with minimal assistance from staff. Thus, the concept of One Place to Look, published in 1990 by the Ontario Strategic Directions Council shortly before the Internet’s rapid development, talked about regional library clusters becoming part of a larger “information grid.” When the word-wide “network of networks,” the Information Highway, began to come into prominence in the early 1990s, it revolutionized global high-speed communications systems. The Internet included computer networks, electronic mail and data files, fiber-optic cable television systems, the World Wide Web, Gopher searching, newsgroups, bulletin board systems, relay chat, and many interactive features. One Place to Look was visionary, but perhaps arrived too early to be a catalyst for planning because the technical infrastructure funding for collaborative projects actually was a federal responsibility.

Conference program, 1995

A few years later, the federal government established its Community Access Program (CAP) for rural Canadians, “Connecting Canadians,” beginning in 1994. One of the aims was to eliminate a “digital divide” in Canada by permitting rural electronic access to government services and online learning resources. Typically, during this transition, a public library would first connect to the Internet through program-sponsored computers and eventually launch its own web site. Later, in 1999, the Ontario government provided money for ten digital library projects worth $250,000 from its Library Strategic Development Fund. Toronto Public Library's “Virtual Reference Library” commenced in October 1999; it offered packaged Internet resources, such as “Science Net” for students, and e-mail service for requests beyond the Metro Toronto area.

The Internet’s impact on public libraries was far-reaching after the mid-1990s and newer technologies, such as the wireless smartphone, would continue to revolutionize that way information was distributed and formatted. Both the impact of the internet and the digital library were constant themes at Ontario Library Association meetings in the late 1990s. The Ontario Strategic Directions Council, in its Building Value Together, published in 2002, advocated formation of a single agency, the “Ontario Public Library,” as the primary agency to lead public libraries into the future. This Library could provide province-wide licensing of electronic resources, conduct market research, plan consortia purchases, develop partnerships, and provide effective central leadership to harness the collective capacity of the public library community. Again, the concept was tied to technological ability and to increased use of digitally produced data.

Digital Libraries Emerge

From the perspective of the user, the Twenty-first century “Digital Library” is a place where resources are available without recourse to visiting a library, service is 24 by 7, staff members could offer assistance in a virtual environment, and their personal library accounts are accessible electronically. As the concept of “Library 2.0” evolved, it became evident that ideas about user-centered change, community participation, and adoption of new technologies would be the keys to future development. In 2005, the provincial government provided funding to implement a new province-wide framework, “Knowledge Ontario.” With funding of $8 million, Knowledge Ontario expanded to include “Our Ontario,” “Resource Ontario,” “Ask Ontario” and “Connect Ontario” projects. Now it was possible for public libraries to ally with schools, archives, museums, and post-secondary institutions in a virtual setting. Technical infrastructure and broadband access were important to achieving the long-term goal of equity of access via a full range of technology. Futurists conceiving ideas about “Library 3.0” or the “Third Generation Library” viewed libraries as adaptive services and flexible structures designed with a community’s involvement and delivered with the participation of library staff and community members. When Knowledge Ontario ceased operation in 2012, OurDigitalWorld carried on the work of open access to digitized historical materials.

It seems the Digital Library will continue to rely on technological developments and collaborative efforts. The integration of public libraries with other public sector heritage and information institutions—public, school, government, post-secondary, and special libraries as well as archives and museums—in formal linkages would ultimately benefit a wide-ranging clientele wishing to invest in an information rich universe. Of course, the Digital Library presents problems of its own: storage, preservation, and copyright are just a few of the challenges.  However, the potential for users to access vast ranges of information in many formats is a goal that the library has embraced because it is an institution that can help people find information and how to evaluate it.

My more detailed article on the development of electronic public libraries in Ontario from 1960–2010 is at this link. 

An earlier blog post on the Information Highway given in 1995.

My post on One Place to Look; The Ontario Public Library Strategic Plan is at this link.

Regional Library Systems in Ontario, 1965-1985

French language display in Algonquin region, 1969

The new 1966 Public Libraries Act formed the structure for rapid, and conflicting, developments into the mid-1980s when this act was greatly modified. This was an era of continuous change in local government at a period of time when municipal regional government replaced older county structures. Expanded provincial jurisdiction over municipalities in Ontario became common. As well, federal/provincial centennial financing--$38.7 million net cost in Ontario--became available to assist the largest construction program since the Carnegie grant era. Almost seventy public library buildings were renovated or constructed in Ontario on a cost-shared basis with municipalities. The 1966 Act modernized local board structures and funding. As well, the Act introduced quasi-independent regional library systems governed by trustees in an effort to equalize services and coordinate planning across cities, towns, older counties and districts in Ontario.

The entire philosophy and administrative apparatus of library service were in flux. Living and Learning, a 1968 report, proposed integrating school and public libraries: it was received coolly in the public library sector. In 1972, the Provincial Library Service (PLS) in Toronto was transferred from the Department of Education to the Ministry of Colleges and Universities, partly to reinforce efforts in the field of continuing education. Provincial library board grants were doubled and a report, The Learning Society, followed. However, within two years libraries were shifted to a new Ministry of Culture. These administrative changes were made without extensive studies or preparations and reinforced a sense of drift towards recreational library services.

Throughout this turbulent period, the size of the PLS remained mostly unchanged and it continued to publish communication pieces in the Ontario Library Review and also added In Review; Canadian Books for Young People in summer 1967. In Review was edited by Irma (McDonough) Milnes, who later helped create the Canadian Children's Book Centre in 1976. To signal a new beginning, provincial travelling libraries were phased out and certification for librarians ended in 1972. Gradually, the PLS mandate was shifted to coordination through fourteen regional systems rather than inspection and supervision. Although the new regional systems did not normally directly serve Ontarians (except Metro Toronto and the northern regions that provided books and services) provincial aid to these bodies increased from $67,000 in 1959 to $8,384,000 in 1981. By 1980, 99% of Ontarians had direct access to municipal tax-supported public library service.

Year    Population 000s    Population Served 000s    Circulation 000s    Volumes 000s
1965         6,788                     5,303                                  44,736               10,060
1970         7,551                     6,667                                  50,277               12,495
1975         8,172                     7,937                                  53,128               17,645
1980         8,754                     8,524                                  56,917               23,291
Table I: Public library expansion, 1965-80 (Sources: Ontario Library Review, Public Library Statistics, and Report of the Minister of Education)

After 1970, total expenditures (both municipal and provincial) rose rapidly as well, although inflation accounted for more a major portion of this increase in the following table.

Year    Library Boards*    Population Served 000s    Expenditure** 000s    Per Capita Expenses
1960          309 (201)                  4,178                               $ 10,442                 $ 2.50
1965          311 (220)                  5,303                                  17,888                    3.37
1970          347                           6,667                                  39,172                    5.88
1975          463                           7,937                                  80,979                   10.20
1980          546                           8,524                                 139,009                  16.31

* Association libraries in brackets (abolished in 1966)
** does not include provincial library agencies, e.g. regional systems
Table II: Public library boards and expenditures, 1960-80 (Sources: Ontario Library Review, Public Library Statistics, and Report of the Minister of Education)

Regionalization of library services in the province presented opportunities to provide improved services and new ways to achieve them. But, on balance, the record of the 1970s was mixed. The 14 library regions had differing resources and financial bases to work with. They were successful in instituting better communication patterns, e.g. telex, that aided inter-library loan. Metro Toronto created a centralized metropolitan reference collection by assuming Toronto Public Library's reference collection in 1968 and eventually opening a much-heralded central reference library in 1977. Two regions, Niagara and Midwestern, developed centralized processing operations where publishers' books could be displayed, purchased, and catalogued at greater discounts but Niagara was forced to close at the end of 1979 due to debt. Three northern regions created a computer produced book catalogue of holdings for users. Across Ontario, regional film pools and union catalogues of audio-visual resources were created for local libraries, groups, and individuals to access programs and entertainment that proved popular.

But, by the mid-1970s, there were signs of discontent and the province funded the “Bowron Report” to investigate options. Unfortunately, consensus on its main recommendations could not be achieved and with the Niagara closure the provincial minister in charge of public libraries decided to embark on a thorough multi-year study of regional systems and public library service. Eventually, in 1984 a new Public Libraries Act was passed to take effect for 1985. It reduced the number of regions, standardized their services, and shifted their focus to networking and technological improvements without making direct major changes to local services. Rather than quasi-independent boards operating regions, the province introduced eight Ontario Library Service areas and retained control and funding for these.

Ontario Regional Libraries, 1966 to 1984 (click to enlarge)

The long-term review and introduction of a new Act came at a time--the late 1970s and early 1980s--when automation and telecommunications were beginning to transform the way library service was delivered to the public and the way in which books and periodicals were published. The Random House Electronic Thesaurus first appeared in 1981 and already, from 1977 on, the full-text of the Toronto Globe and Mail was available in database form when it became the first newspaper to publish electronically and in print on the same day. In libraries, computerized output was becoming a viable alternative to the traditional card catalogue. Indeed, the PLS was actively investigating computer applications and networking in Ontario through an office established at the Metro Toronto Library by the regional systems.

The potential of computer-based information technologies on library resources and library administrative functions (especially circulation, cataloguing, and communication) were studied extensively for the subsequent half-decade. This activity signaled the end of librarians’ and trustees’ preoccupation with administrative units of service and the need to extend services to unserved populations. Instead, they were obliged to reconsider the status of non-print collections as "secondary" in budgeting and planning and to prepare for an automated future. In 1980 it was quite possible to speculate on “electronic libraries,” as Henry Campbell, Toronto's chief librarian (1956-78) did, but, by 1985, when the Ministry of Citizenship and Culture sponsored a provincial symposium, "Libraries 2000," new technological possibilities were becoming practical realities. The dominance of print culture, which Marshall McLuhan had challenged in the 1960s, was in decline and electronic modes of communication on the rise. Regional telex equipment had forged links in the 1970s, but now fax and electronic networks connected by computer workstations in offices and homes were transforming ideas about the delivery of library services. Libraries could not escape this trend: both the Ontario Library Review and In Review ceased publication in 1982.

Between 1965 and 1985 there were many changes in public administration, technology, demographics, economic development, and social conventions, but the idea of improving modern library service and distribution reading and literature to the reading public, developing bibliographic systems and information, and making librarians important elements in linking citizens with information, remained constant in Ontario’s “public library community.” Progressive changes in the model of service to communities, advances in technology, the growth of the liberal “welfare state” in the public services sector, multiculturalism, and bilingualism, had provided the framework for library promoters to innovate and adapt in Ontario. Across Canada, new directions were clear by the third quarter of the twentieth century: as libraries united in cooperative efforts to share resources and to apply automation in daily operations the old relationship with printed resources were in decline and the electronic future raised many new challenges that required further study and action.

My blog on the Bowron Report, 1976

My blog on the Ontario Public Library Programme Review (1982) that formed the basis for the new public libraries act enacted in 1985.