Canadian Library History Blog

Well, after years of research, I have published something on Angus Mowat, Ontario's irrepressible Inspector (later Director) of Public Libraries for three decades. And in the latest issue of Ontario History , a favourite regional journal for professional and local historians alike. Updated, June 2023: the entire article is now available at Érudit, an important Quebec non-profit publisher. To read about AM and rural libraries before WWII go to this link : Angus Mowat, 1940 "An Inspector Calls: Angus Mowat and Ontario's Rural Libraries, 1937-40" Ontario History (Spring 2014, vol. CVI, no. 1) covers a short period just before the Second World War when Angus Mowat began his lengthy career in the Ontario civil service. Mowat was an inspirational voice for public library work during the Great Depression. In 1937, after he became the Inspector of Public Libraries in the Ontario Department of Education, he helped revive spirits and raise service ambitions in smaller librar...

A Regional Library and Its Readers; A Study of Five Years of Rural Reading by H. B. Chandler and J.T. Croteau. New York: American Association for Adult Education, 1940. 136 p. tables, charts, and index. When it first appeared, in 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, A Regional Library and Its Readers received little notice in Canadian library circles. Peacetime energies were being redirected to the nation's war effort and the establishment of military-camp libraries. An academic publication by the Director of Prince Edward Island Libraries (Henry Chandler) and a college professor (John Croteau) at Charlottetown's St. Dunstan's University surely was not cause for detailed discussion, especially if it was published in New York. It was an American review in the July 1940 issue of Library Quarterly that best recognized this innovative Canadian study's linkage of library circulation with the reading habits of rural Prince Edward Islanders and noted the tren...

Libraries in Canada: A Study of Library Conditions and Needs by John Ridington, chair; Mary J. L. Black, and George H. Locke. Toronto: Ryerson Press; and Chicago: American Library Association, 1933. 153 p. index. In the spring of 1933, thousands of printed copies of Canada's first national survey of libraries were delivered to the offices of newspaper and magazine editors; school and university officials; federal, provincial and municipal politicians; as well as librarians and trustees. It marked the culmination of three years of work by Carnegie-funded commissioners who had traversed Canada in 1930 at the outset of the Great Depression. Led by John Ridington, the chief librarian of the University of British Columbia, the Commission, which included George H. Locke (Toronto) and Mary J.L. Black (Fort William), had sought to ascertain the state of Canadian libraries and made recommendations to improve conditions. The three commissioners were primarily interested in public librarie...

Sixty years ago, in January 1953, Canada's National Library Act took effect. The original statute was passed on May 27, 1952, during the 6th session of the 21st Canadian Parliament under the Liberal leader, Prime Minister Louis St-Laurent. The year 1952 was not uneventful. The country was emerging from the immediate postwar era in a more prosperous condition; Elizabeth II became Queen of Canada; Canadian armed forces were fighting in Korea; CBC television went on the air; and a national Old Age Security scheme was introduced. For most Canadians, the National Library was a lesser consideration in nation building. However, the idea of assembling the greatest collection of literature on Canada in the world and making it available to all Canadians had been an important recommendation of the influential Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences (aka the Massey Report) when it was released in 1951. The report was clear about its national importance: ...

The Library Book: A History of Service to British Columbia by David Obee. Vancouver, British Columbia Library Association, 2011. 264 p., illus., $50.00. A modestly sized coffee table book with 300 photographs is an unusual entry for a library history but, in this case, well worth reading and possessing. The Library Book covers more than a hundred years in three major sections with eighteen chapters. David Obee is a respected journalist, a local-family historian, as well as a genealogist; and he has combined his knowledge and skills to craft an informative and entertaining history of all types of libraries in British Columbia from the late eighteenth century up to the present. With the help of a number of prominent BC people in the library community, this book was published to celebrate the centenary of the British Columbia Library Association in 2011. David Obee covers the development of a valued provincial service for many different clienteles by public, school, college and uni...

A Book in Every Hand: Public Libraries in Saskatchewan by Don Kerr. Regina: Coteau Books, 2005. 279 pp.; $19.95. Still available via email from Saskatchewan Library Trustees' Association . At the start of the 1930s, a national study funded by the Carnegie Corporation, Libraries in Canada , reasoned that Saskatchewan, with almost a million people, might prosper in the years ahead if public library proponents worked hard to achieve services beyond a few major communities. A base existed. Regina and North Battleford had Carnegie library buildings. Saskatoon, Prince Albert, and Moose Jaw were major centres with book collections. But the vast majority of people were rural dwellers who depended on a Travelling Library service of boxes of books for loan, an Open Shelf system of 'books by mail' operated from the provincial Legislature, and small, struggling, mostly subscription-funded libraries. One solution highlighted by this report was the development of regional libraries thr...

Library Spirit in the Nordic and Baltic Countries: Historical Perspectives edited by Martin Dyrbye, Ilkka Makinen, Tiiu Reimo, and Magnus Torstensson. Tampere, Finland: HIBOLIRE, 2009. 188 p. illus.          The authors involved in this publication belong to HIBOLIRE, The Nordic-Baltic-Russian Network on the History of Books, Libraries and Reading, a multinational and multidisciplinary network of scholars. They consider the development of Nordic public libraries to be relatively influential and successful in a broad northern geographic arc from Greenland to the Baltic States. My interest in this library history is on the comparative aspects that I recognize from a Canadian context, not surprising because the Nordic "library spirit" often incorporates Anglo-American ideas about public libraries stemming from the 19th century that were also prevalent in Canada.         In terms of public library development, several countries ev...