Les Bibliothèques Populaires (1890) by Eugène Rouillard

Les Bibliothèques Populaires by Eugène Rouillard. Québec: L.-J. Demers & Frère, 1890. 61 p.

Eugène Rouillard, n.d.

Nicolas-Olivier-Eugène Rouillard was a man of many talents. He was born in Québec City in 1851 and died there in 1926 after a long career as a notary, journalist and writer, civil servant, and geographer. He studied at the Université Laval from 1872-75 and graduated with a degree in law. Although he was notary at the beginning of his career, he turned to journalism as a writer and editor of newspapers and then to work in government positions for three decades. In his government positions he dealt with a wide variety of issues, such as land sales, colonization issues, and lawsuits. Rouillard came to be well respected by contemporaries: he became a member of the Société du Parler Français au Canada, the Geographical Society of Quebec, and, in 1915, the Royal Society of Canada. He was grounded in the political life of his home province and his journalistic and civil service background familiarized him with Anglo-Saxon concepts of government and civil society with respect to public services. He was the author of a number of books: Our Rivers and Lakes (1895); The White Coal: The Water-Powers of the Province of Quebec (1909), and an important work on public libraries which will be discussed here.

Rouillard was one of a number of Canadian library promoters agitating for free public libraries after 1880. John Hallam, in Toronto, was notably successful after publishing his Notes by the Way on Free Libraries and Books with a Plea for the Establishment of Rate-Supported Libraries in the Province of Ontario in 1882. The Saint John Free Library, which opened in 1883, owed much to the work of Colonel James Domville and a committee of women headed by Miss Manning Skinner. In Montreal, the bequest of Hugh Fraser led to the establishment of the Fraser Institute, open free to the public in 1885. There many other people in localities across Canada--enough to label their activity as the "public library movement." By 1891, Ontario, British Columbia, and Quebec had all passed provincial laws enabling municipalities to support free public libraries through regular taxation.

 Eugène Rouillard Promotes Public Library Service in Quebec

Les Bibliothèques Populaires (1890) appeared at a time when public library development in Canada, especially Quebec, was at an early stage. There were a variety of interpretations about "bibliothèques populaires", i.e. "popular libraries" or "libraries for the people" as they were known in Europe, especially France. These libraries usually concentrated on recreational rather than educational collections. In North America, public libraries might be regarded simply as library that was not a personal collection, as libraries for public access resulting from private initiatives (e.g., the Fraser Institute opened in Montreal), as libraries established by an organization requiring small fees for public use, or as municipally rate-supported public institutions that allowed local residents free access to reading materials at the point of entry. It was this last sense that drew Rouillard's interest and led him to publish his pamphlet promoting public libraries in the same year that the Quebec provincial government, under the premiership of Honoré Mercier, was about to issue legislation authorizing cities, towns, and villages to support free libraries (or library associations and mechanics' institutes) through taxation (54 Vic., chap. 34, sec. 1-3). The promotion of free public libraries -- primarily a British and American ideal in 1890 -- might be construed as liberal politics. But it seems that Rouillard leaned more to the reformist politics that the Mercier government practiced in asserting Quebec's position in Confederation. Rouillard repeatedly mentions that free libraries complemented the evening courses for the working class that Mercier's nationalist party had created: "En un mot, la bibliothèque est le complément indispensable de l'école; l'une ne peut aller sans l'autre" (p. 18). Rouillard contended that the state owed the working class improved educational opportunities.

In two short sections, Rouillard surveys the development of free public libraries in the United States (p. 26-36). He was particularly impressed by the Chicago and Boston libraries which had grown rapidly after the 1850s. Magnificent donations to build libraries by John Jacob Astor (New York) and Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh) also drew his admiration: "les millionnaires qui se font non seulement un devoir, mais encore un honneur et une gloire de doter leur ville natale d'une bibliothèque à l'usage du peuple" (p. 31). Also, American states had established state laws that permitted municipalities to fund public libraries on an unprecedented scale. He wrote that Canada lagged far behind America both in philanthropic efforts to establish libraries and in government support.

Developments in Europe were also explored. He notes that fourteen free popular libraries already were receiving city ​​council grants in Paris. In Britain, public library legislation had been introduced years before in 1850. Rouillard's argumentation went beyond the free distribution of reading material in libraries. He claimed that many cities and towns in England, France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany offered regular evening courses and public speakers who gave their time and their knowledge for free as well.

But in Quebec, there was much work to be done to reach a similar state enjoyed by working-class people in the United State and Europe. "Dans la province de Québec — il faut bien le confesser — nous sommes encore sous ce rapport dans la première enfance" (p. 45). By comparison, Ontario was comfortably ahead: there were several free libraries and a host of libraries and evening classes of varying degree in mechanics' institutes. Rouillard accepted the idea that the education of the people was a legitimate concern of localities: "Aussi, je prétends que la ville qui veut avoir une bibliothèque chez elle doit intervenir et payer sa quote-part des frais généraux" (p. 57). Legislative grants from provincial governments were not incentive enough, each city or town must do its part. The generosity of Andrew Carnegie might not be matched in dollars, but there were rich men from the ranks of commerce and industry in Quebec who might be expected to support libraries. Rouillard concluded that the idea of popular libraries that had been launched was too noble, too big, too beautiful, and too patriotic not to catch on and flourish in the future (p. 61).

The pamphleteer made a good case in 1890, but it would be many decades before Montreal would adopt the public library concept he was advocating. At this time, the predominant position of most French Canadian leaders espoused the idea of a separate national identity for the Québécois people rather than the adoption of  Anglo-American conventions. When a proposal to use a $150,000 Carnegie grant for a new central library was floated by the mayor of Montreal in 1901, it was not accepted. The opening of a new municipal public library building on Sherbrooke Street in 1917 was of long gestation. By this time, Rouillard's treatise, grounded in the political life of Quebec in 1890, was less relevant. Nevertheless, today, when thousands of people enter the Grande Bibliothèque on Montreal's De Maisonneuve Boulevard every week, one can see that Rouillard's fundamental insight and rationale for the provision of free municipal libraries more than a century ago -- the expansion of knowledge in his home province -- was justified. In this respect, his work will reward students of library history and deepen our knowledge about the development of Canadian public libraries.

Eugène Rouillard's work is online at the Internet Archive

Rouillard's biography is available in English and French at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography site.

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 United States 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.

John 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 district libraries is at this link.

The Public Library: Its Place in Our Educational System (1912) by Edwin Austin Hardy

The Public Library: Its Place in our Educational System by Edwin Austin Hardy. Toronto: William Briggs, 1912. ii, 223 p., illus., tables, appendices. Published version of Hardy's Doctor of Paedagogy dissertation.

Edwin Austin Hardy, n.d.

Edwin Austin Hardy, who was born in New Hampshire in 1867, was a teacher, author, and library advocate. When he was still a child his family moved to Uxbridge, Ontario, where he received his early education. Eventually, he received a BA at the University of Toronto in 1888. He then took teacher training and taught in Lindsay where he became a trustee at the Mechanics' Institute in 1894. Although teaching was Hardy's profession, he also promoted public libraries. In 1899, Lindsay became a free public library and Carnegie money was granted to open a new building in 1904. Hardy was one of the founders of the Ontario Library Association (OLA) in 1900 and he worked tirelessly as its Secretary from 1900-25 before serving as President in 1925-26. Hardy moved to Toronto to organize work with the Sunday Schools Associations of Ontario in 1904, to be President of Moulton Ladies' College in 1906, and then a teacher of English and History at Jarvis Street Collegiate in 1910. He retired in 1936.

Hardy was a progressive organizer in the Victorian mold and held many interests. He helped found the Toronto High School Teachers' Association in 1903 and the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation in 1919. He also helped found the Canadian Teachers' Federation in 1920 and was active as an officer in the World Federation of Education Associations and the Canadian Authors' Association. He was chair of the Toronto Board of Education in 1940 and pursued activities in the League of Empire and Health League of Canada. Hardy received the Order of the British Empire for his outstanding community work in 1935.

From a library perspective, Hardy's efforts in his role as secretary of OLA to promote public libraries, trustee governance, and library training were significant. But another prominent achievement was his 1912 doctorate on public libraries and an historical account of their development in Ontario. His work reviewed the development of libraries and provided an influential account of activities that libraries could undertake to improve the lives of individuals and, by extension, society. This will be the focus of my post.

Hardy arrived on the library scene at an important moment in 1895 when the Ontario legislature introduced an Act to amend and consolidate the Acts respecting Free Libraries and Mechanics' Institutes (58 Vic., Cap. 45). One section of this act provided that every free library and every Mechanics' Institute would be called a "Public Library." Hardy felt that this terminology "had something to do with their progress since [1895], especially in the developing of public interest in their management and betterment" (p. 42-43). Of course, Hardy was thinking of larger "public libraries" that were supported by mandated municipal levies raised in cities and towns rather than the vast number of smaller "public libraries" in Ontario that subsisted on membership fees, fundraising, and modest grants from local and provincial governments. Hardy foresaw a bright future for this first type of public library: "Its possibilities are only now being recognized by our legislative and educational authorities and by the public, in fact, even by library workers themselves. But it is coming to its own, slowly at first, but gathering force and speed daily, and the near future will see the public library system of Ontario as efficient as her primary and secondary school system" (p. 123-124). Despite many societal changes, Hardy's prediction for the most part has stood the test of time for more than a century.

E.A. Hardy publishes The Public Library in 1912

Hardy's outline of the early 20th-century library purposes, activities, and educational work, as well as the factors contributing to the success of Ontario's public libraries may seem somewhat simplistic or outdated by today's standards, but they were by no means entirely acceptable to all his contemporaries. In fact, Hardy's treatise was ahead of his time and filled with suggestions for improving early 20th-century libraries. In many ways, his thesis is representative of classic arguments and conditions that existed for more than half a century when public libraries in Ontario (and Canada) were establishing firmer, more systematic roots on a provincial basis. It was the full-blown era of the "public library movement" when enthusiastic citizens in many urban communities agitated for municipal rate-supported libraries that would allow free access to people in local communities. By the mid-1920s all of Ontario's larger cities had established free public libraries.

Concerning the purpose of public libraries (aka, today's mission statement) and its general operation, Hardy advocated that they provide 1) a selection of the "best books" of general, scientific and reference literature; 2) recreative "good" fiction which would reach a broader public; 3) books and story hours for children of all ages; 4) current periodical holdings to satisfy a variety of community interests; 5) properly classified and catalogued collections (Hardy favoured the Dewey Decimal system and card catalogues); 6) open access to collections; and 7) effective publicity ("The public must be made to know and to feel that the library belongs to them and not to the librarian or the Board", p. 80)

Concerning the important educative value of public libraries, Hardy outlined a number of activities:
Technical Education -- provision and promotion of books for engineering and industrial training
Commercial and Agricultural Education -- materials for bookkeeping, accounting, banking,
transportation, etc. to serve commercial growth and rural progress
Musical Education -- a variety materials (possibly sheet music as well)
Art Education -- books, catalogues, reproduction, photographs, etc.
Domestic Education -- resources for the home, its furnishings, maintenance, and health
Political Education -- newspapers, public documents, statues, legislative materials, etc. In an era before women were legally able to vote, Hardy was particularly keen to satisfy the needs of lawyers and students of politics (the "young men entering the field of public life", p. 94)
Medical and Legal Education -- mostly books for serious study or reference concerns
Teachers' Institutes -- materials that could bring teachers in closer touch with the public library
Local Clubs and Societies -- space for local organizations to house their holdings
Travelling Libraries -- a centre for local study groups to access the Ontario Department of Education's book service which continued until the early 1960s
Lecture Rooms in the Library -- "Lecture courses, debating societies, library institutes, and all such intellectual activities, find themselves in a congenial atmosphere in library buildings" (p. 97)
The Library and the School -- Hardy summarizes several ways that the public library and school might operate to the benefit of students and community life but did not advocate one over the other.

Concerning the successful administration and management of libraries, Hardy felt that Ontario was on the right track in several sections. It began with contemporary Legislative Assistance and Supervision which was now greatly improved. Only the inadequacy of the staff in the Inspector of Public Libraries office was holding back progress at the provincial level. Library Boards held the power of management and were optimally representative of their communities. Educated direction by community members was an important ingredient in library success. Of course, Hardy was hopeful that board members (mostly men) "should attract the best classes of citizens" (p. 105) and provide continuity in library affairs through open-minded decision making. He admitted that Finances were often inadequate (especially in smaller libraries) and suggested a few remedies for added grants and incentives from governments. For Public Library Buildings Hardy suggested "The essential qualities to be aimed at are simplicity, convenience, facility and economy of administration" (p. 109). He offered Lindsay as an example: its radial stack plan at the rear was open to the public for browsing and it held separate small rooms on each side of the entrance for reading purposes and children. An efficient Librarian was an instrumental part of public library success. "Efficiency here does not mean knowledge of books and skill in library methods alone; it implies a right spirit; a spirit of service, of tact, of open-minded alertness, of zeal and of sympathy" (p. 109). With proper Training of the Librarian at the recently opened summer school for librarians in Toronto in 1911, Hardy felt a good beginning had been made. But there was much work to be done in educating and training librarians in Ontario. Finally, the author concluded with some comments about Public Sentiment and Library Organization. Hardy foresaw that the efforts of the Ontario Library Association to arouse public support and establish better standards would be essential for future success.

Hardy had opened his thesis by developing a history of the public library in Ontario that followed along the lines of his contemporary, James Bain, chief librarian of Toronto Public Library. Together, they outlined a progressive record in Ontario from subscription libraries (aka, membership or association) libraries, Mechanics' Institutes, free libraries, and ultimately public libraries after 1895. Both men emphasized the community aspect of local library growth: a bottoms-up effort assisted by small provincial grants that gave prominence to Ontario's "public library movement" led by nonprofessional civic leaders. This was a Victorian success story in many ways, but one that could also continue to be improved in many ways. Victorians in Britain and Canada believed in cultural accessibility, social order, and a more expansive representative liberal democracy. Books, improved literacy, and reading freely attainable at a public institution such as the library was all well and good as Hardy illustrated in his epigraph to his work from Edward Edwards, the English librarian and author:

"To make good books of the highest order freely and easily accessible throughout the length and breadth of the land were surely to give no mean furtherance to the efforts of the schoolmaster, and of the Christian minister, to produce under God's blessing a tranquil, a cultivated and a religious people."

Hardy, a lifelong Baptist, held strong religious views and was also active in promoting Sunday School libraries. It could be said he possessed what his American contemporaries, such as Melvil Dewey, called the "library spirit" -- the possibility of social change for the better through the educative qualities of the public library. It was a stance that would be the mainstay in public library growth in Ontario until after 1945 when social life and librarianship began to undergo many changes during a new phase of mid-century modernization that emphasized recreational aspects and new concepts related to information access that Victorians, such as Hardy, could scarcely imagine. In retrospect, he provided the most informed Canadian statement concerning the "library spirit" in speaking about its main protagonist, librarian:

An efficient librarian can do more with a thousand books in unfavorable quarters than a poor librarian with ten thousand in a thoroughly satisfactory building. Efficiency here does not mean knowledge of books and skill in library methods alone; it implies a right spirit; a spirit of service, of tact, of open- minded alertness, of zeal and of sympathy. Given a librarian of that spirit, trained in some adequate fashion and the public library becomes not only the handmaid of the schools, but it becomes in a very true sense  'the people's university.' It not only meets the wants which the community now feels, but reveals to it new wants to be supplied. (p.109-10)

In time, by the 1920s, the "library spirit" that characterized work in North America in previous decades would begin to give way in Ontario to "modern methods," a unifying concept that Hardy would eventually turn to in later publications.

Hardy's published 1912 thesis is readily available online at Canadiana Online

Further reading:

John Wiseman, "'Champion Has-Been': Edwin Austin Hardy and the Ontario Library Movement," in Peter F. McNally, ed., Readings in Canadian Library History (Ottawa: Canadian Library Association, 1986), pp. 231-243.

Edwin Austin Hardy, “An Outline Program of the Work of the Ontario Library Association,” Public Libraries; a Monthly Review of Library Matters and Methods 6, no. 7 (July 1901): 414–418.

Edwin Austin Hardy, “A Half Century of Retrospect and Prospect; Annual Presidential Address,” Ontario Library Review 11, no. 2 (Nov. 1926): 41–46. [library work as "this great service of culture and happiness"]

Edwin Austin Hardy, “The Ontario Library Association: Forty Years, 1900-1940,” Ontario Library Review 25, no. 1 (Feb. 1941): 9–13. ["lay membership is of great importance"]

George Locke and the Toronto Public Library

George H. Locke, chief librarian of the Toronto Public Library between 1908 and 1937, was Canada’s foremost librarian in the first part of the twentieth century. During this period, free public libraries and librarianship in Ontario expanded rapidly due to the philanthropy of Andrew Carnegie, improvements in library education, and the influence of American library developments.

George Locke’s Contributions to the Toronto Public Library

Locke’s outlook in library work was guided by his Methodist upbringing, his association with John Dewey’s contribution to American progressive education, and the Anglo-Canadian academic tradition of British Idealism in the late nineteenth century. These religious and intellectual strands encouraged personal action to seek solutions to improve social conditions. As director of Toronto’s library system, he brought his ambitious ideas to bear in many ways most notably the building of neighbourhood branches, library service for children and young adults, formal education for librarians, and the idea of the public library as a municipal partner in the lifelong self-education of Canadians. By the end of the 1920s, Toronto’s public library system was recognized as one of the best in North America and George Locke’s reputation as a progressive leader had vaulted him to the Presidency of the American Library Association in 1926-27.

Although he had created a large organization that might have succumbed to bureaucratic practices and formalized centralization, he remained faithful to his moral, intellectual, and humanistic values acquired during his schooling and university career. For Locke, libraries and librarianship served the public interest by delivering lifelong knowledge and by guiding individual self-development through experiential learning and transcendent ideals. He promoted adult learning in the early part of the twentieth century when adult education became a field of study in North America.

Many services Locke introduced at Toronto Public Library and national projects he undertook influenced Canadian developments in library work. After the Carnegie Corporation of New York agreed to fund a study of the conditions of Canadian libraries, Locke, along with Mary J. L. Black (Fort William) and John Ridington (University of British Columbia), became commissioners in a national inquiry that was conducted at the onset of the Great Depression. Their 1933 publication, Libraries in Canada: A Study of Library Conditions and Needs, was the first in-depth report on Canadian libraries in the 20th century. Because his impact extended well beyond Toronto, the Canadian government erected a bronze plaque in his honour in 1948 in the town of his birth, Beamsville, Ontario. It reads:

Born at Beamsville and educated at Victoria College and the University of Toronto, Locke taught at Toronto, Chicago and Harvard Universities and was Dean of Education at Chicago and at MacDonald College before becoming Chief Librarian of the Toronto Public Libraries. In that position, he transformed a small institution into one of the most respected library systems on the continent. Sometime President of the American Library Association, one of the founders of the Arts & Letters Club, he was a gifted speaker and the author of books and articles on literary, historical and professional themes. He died in Toronto.

 Locke’s Achievements Recognized

Today, the George H. Locke Memorial Branch, the first major library building in Canada constructed after the Second World War in 1949, continues to be a testament to his career and his faith in the idea of the public library as a necessary educational service to society.

George Locke's family upbringing and academic years in Toronto, Chicago, and Boston shaped many of his ideas that he applied to libraries and librarianship. Read about these viewpoints in my illustrated book, “George H. Locke and the Transformation of Toronto Public Library, 1908-1937” available at the Internet Archive of books. Requires Adobe Acrobat PDF software.

 A review of Libraries in Canada is at my earlier post.

CANADIAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION CONSTITUTION, 1947

In June 1946, the Canadian Library Association was founded on the McMaster University campus in Hamilton, Ontario. There were about 300 persons in attendance. One of the first orders of business was the adoption of a draft constitution which had been circulated to groups across the nation. The members present agreed that the CLA would be a bilingual, national organization with annual conferences across Canada. However, the delegates balked at the draft proposal of having executives and governing councilors represent geographical considerations; instead, the members voted to have both the association's  Executive and Council elected by the membership based on personal merit.

Membership in CLA was envisioned to be general, it was to be an "umbrella model" library organization. There would be institutional members interested in the promotion of library service, librarians, trustees and those serving on governing boards of libraries, as well as associate members (persons interested in librarianship and libraries). Professional interests were represented in new active Sections, six by 1950: Children's, Young People's, Trustees, Cataloguing, Reference, and Research Libraries.

The CLA's constitution was incorporated under Canada's federal Companies Act on November 26, 1947. Of course, some constitutional provisions, such as the one on Sections (VII) that authorized the formation of groups focused on professional concerns, would be revised a number of times in the next decade. This version was published in 1947 and reflects the ideas and agreement reached at the founding meeting of CLA.

---

 

Canadian Library Association -- Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques

Constitution, 1947

Article I     -   Name
Article II    -   Object
Article III   -  Membership
Article IV   -  Officers and Executive Board
Article V    -  Council
Article VI   -  Committees
Article VII  -  Sections
Article VIII - Meetings
Article IX   -  By-laws
Article X    -  Amendments to the Constitution


Article I. Name
Sec. 1. The name of this body shall be the Canadian Library Association or Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques.

Article II. Object
Sec. 1. The object of the Association shall be:
(a) to promote education, science and culture within the nation through library service;
(b) to promote high standards of librarianship and the welfare of librarians;
(c) to co-operate with library associations both within and outside of Canada and with other organizations interested in the promotion of education, science and culture.
Sec. 2. The Association shall be a non-profit, non-sectarian, non-political body.

Article III. Membership
Sec. 1. Members. An individual, institution or other group approved by the Executive Board may become a member upon payment of the fees provided for in the by-laws. The membership of an individual or an institution may be suspended by two-thirds vote of the Combined Executive Board and Council; a suspended member may be reinstated by a two-thirds vote of the Board and Council in joint session.

Article IV. Officers and Executive Board
Sec 1.
(a) The officers of the Association shall be a President, a President-Elect, who shall serve as First Vice-President, a Second Vice-President, an Executive Secretary, and a Treasurer. These officers, with the exception of the Executive Secretary, shall be elected at each annual general meeting of the Association, and, with the immediate Past President, shall constitute the Executive Board.
(b) All library members shall be eligible for election to the Executive Board.
Sec. 2. Duties of Officers.
(a) The President, First Vice-President, Executive Secretary and Treasurer shall perform the duties relating to their respective offices.
(b) The President shall be an ex-officio member of all Committees of the Association.
(c) i. The President-Elect shall serve the first year after election as First Vice-President, the second year as President, the third year as ex-officio member of the Executive Board.
ii. The President-Elect shall, in accordance with the By-laws, designate to the Executive Board for appointment, the five members of the Nominating Committee.
(d)The President, the Executive Secretary and the Treasurer shall report annually to the membership.
Sec. 3. Duties of the Executive Board.
(a) The Executive Board shall administer the affairs of the Association during its term of office in accordance with the policies laid down by the Council.
(b) It shall review all membership applications as submitted, and be responsible for their approval.
(c) It shall review the annual estimates, and approve the annual budgets which shall be received by the Treasurer. All budgets shall be within the limit of the estimated income of the Association.
(d) It shall report promptly resolutions adopted by the Executive Board to the Councillors.
(e) It shall fix compensation of all paid officers and employees.
(f) It shall choose and appoint the Executive Secretary. This officer shall be appointed by the Executive Board at each annual Executive Board meeting.
(g) It shall designate the length of terms of appointments to Committees in accordance with the By-laws.
(h) The Executive Board shall authorize votes by mail when required.
(i) It shall fill all vacancies in office. The persons so elected shall serve until the end of the fiscal year.
Sec. 4. Term of Office.
(a) The officers and the Executive Board shall serve until the end of the fiscal year.
(b) i. No person shall serve on the Executive Board for more than three consecutive years.
ii. No person can be returned to the Executive Board after a term of three years, during the three years subsequent to the expiration of his term of office.

Article V. Council
Sec. 1. Membership. The Council shall consist of the following members to be known as Councillors:
(a) Nine members elected by the membership at large.
(b) The members of the Executive Board.
(c) Chairmen of Sections.
Sec. 2. Councillors. Members of the Council shall be Members of the Association in good standing.
Sec. 3. Duties.
(a)The Council shall be the Legislative body of the Association.
(b) It shall determine all policies of the Association and its decisions shall be binding upon the Association, its officers, and its constituted bodies.
(c) In the Council shall be vested all powers of the Association not otherwise provided for in the Constitution and By-laws.
(d) It shall inform the Executive Board of all new and revised policies.
(e) The Council shall review the action of officers, Committees and Executive Board of the Association.
(f) It shall promptly consider questions of professional and public interest referred to it by the membership Committees, or Executive Board, and promptly act upon reports and recommendations made by the Association and its constituted bodies.
(g) It shall report regularly to the Association at the annual meeting.
(h) It shall appoint Standing Committees in accordance with the By-laws.
(i)The members may. set aside any action of the Council by a three-fourths vote at any meeting of the Association or by a majority vote by mail in which one-fourth of the voting members of the Association have voted. Such vote by mail shall be held upon petition of fifty members of the Association.
Sec. 4. Terms of Office.
(a) Councillors chosen by the membership at large shall serve for a term of three years except as stated in the By-laws.
(b) No person shall serve on the Council for two consecutive terms.
(c) The Council year shall be the Fiscal Year.

Article VI. Committees
Sec. 1. Committees shall be appointed in accordance with the By-laws.
Sec. 2. All members of the Association are eligible for committee membership.
Sec. 3. The President shall be an ex-officio member of all Committees of the Association.
Sec. 4. Each Committee shall present an annual report to the Council.

Article VII. Sections
Sec. 1. Special interest sections of the Association may be constituted as provided for in the By-laws.

Article VIII. Meetings
Sec. 1. Meetings shall be held as provided for in the By-laws.

Article IX. By-laws
Sec. 1. By-laws and amendments to them may be proposed in writing by the Executive Board, by the Council, or by twenty voting members of the Association.
Sec. 2. They shall be received by the Executive Secretary and included in the agenda for the annual general meeting.
Sec. 3. They may be adopted by a majority vote of the members present and voting at an annual general meeting.
Sec. 4. Any By-law may be suspended by a three-fourths vote of those present and voting at an annual general meeting.

Article X. Amendments to the Constitution
Sec. 1. Amendments to the constitution may be proposed in writing by the Council, by the Executive Board, or by twenty voting members of the Association for consideration by a Constitution Committee at least two months before the annual general meeting.
Sec. 2. Report of the Constitution Committee shall be received by the Executive Secretary, included in the agenda for the annual general meeting, and mailed to the membership three weeks in advance of the meeting.
Sec. 3. Amendments may be adopted by a majority vote of the members present and voting at the annual general meeting.