Canadian Library History Blog

Dorothy I. Hamilton, The Libraries of the Universities of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. A Report . (Ann Arbor: Department of Library Science, University of Michigan, 1942). 2, 2, 137 leaves with tables. Winifred H. Snider, Extramural Library Service in Libraries and Extension Departments of Canadian Universities . MA thesis (New York: Columbia University Library School, 1948). 64 p. with tables. Until the Second World War, it could be said with a measure of assurance that librarianship in Canada was dominated by interest in public library development. Libraries in higher education were mostly the reserve of an educated minority of Canadians. It was the public library that was known by the popular notion, the ‘people’s university.’ There were, of course, occasions when academic librarians, such as Stewart Wallace, Gerhard Lomer, and Kaye Lamb, rose to prominence in provincial organizations during the Depression. And, in the early 1930s, the Commission of En...

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...

Douglas Library, c. 1930 The history of Canadian university and college libraries remains an understudied subject. To be sure, the ‘golden age’ of rapid expansion of facilities and progressive professional development after 1960 has attracted attention. But, despite decades of interaction between Canada's educated elite (students, administrators, and faculty) and campus libraries and librarians, the period prior to 1960 is mostly the record of individual librarians (usually directors), iconic buildings (e.g., the Douglas Library at Queen’s University), and underdeveloped collections. In the general history of all Canadian libraries that emphasizes the public library movement, the Carnegie building program between 1900–1925, regional library growth after the 1930s, the postwar formation of the Canadian Library Association (1946) and establishment of National Library legislation (1953), and the dramatic contrast between library development in Quebec and English-speaking ...

“Building Canadian Electronic Libraries: The Experience in Ontario Public Libraries, 1960-2010” by Lorne D. Bruce. Article published in Libraries in the Early 21st Century. Volume 1, An International Perspective [pp. 92-104], edited on behalf of the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions by Dr. Ravindra N. Sharma. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter Saur, 2012.ix, 398 p.; ill.; map. Years ago, shortly after the disastrous financial depression of 2008-09, I was asked to write about the Canadian experience with electronic libraries in the last half of the 20th century. There are few such studies in Canadian library history, but it was agreed that I would contribute a paper on Ontario's public library experience with automation, electronic-virtual-digital libraries, and ‘Library 2.0.’ Of course, a provincial outline must incorporate national and international technological developments. I tried to balance my article within a chronological framework that would i...

A Survey of Montreal Library Facilities and a Proposed Plan for a Library System by Mary Duncan (Colhoun) Carter, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1942. xi, 180 leaves, tables, maps. In the early 1940s, Montreal's public library needs were only partially met by the 'big four,' the Civic Library, the Fraser Institute Library, the Mechanics' Institute Library, and the Westmount Public Library. Other libraries, the Children's Library, the Jewish People's Library, two dozen parish libraries operated by the Catholic Church, and a few special libraries also provided general reading. Compared to Toronto or cities of similar size in the United States--Cleveland, St. Louis, and Baltimore--there was no strong, centralized public library service. It was this particular circumstance that Mary Duncan Carter examined and sought to provide a coherent, systematic plan for metropolitan service in her 1942 dissertation. Duncan Carter was no stranger to...