THE CASE FOR A NATIONAL LIBRARY OF CANADA, 1933–1946

In the midst of the Great Depression a Carnegie funded project to study Canadian libraries appeared. In a hundred and fifty pages this report, authored by John Ridington, George H. Locke, and Mary J.L. Black, surveyed the landscape of library service across the country. Its two chapters on government libraries still make sober reading today. The surveyors reported there was “very little enthusiasm for either a scholarly or a democratic book service in most of the libraries of the various government of Canada.”

Indifference and neglect continued to prevail in government circles on the topic of a national library. Libraries in Canada (1933) did not issue a rallying cry for a national library—it was content with offering advice that a national librarian should be appointed and put in charge of all the libraries maintained by the Dominion government. In this way, all their activities could be coordinated, their holdings catalogued and made available nationally over a period of time. A system of legal deposit would ensure a comprehensive collection of printed resources. Eventually, a new building could be erected to house material and provide reference and reading services. It was an opportunity, but one unlikely to be a priority in the early 1930s.

But the times did change. A Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations was struck in 1937 to examine the underlying financing for the federal and provincial basis of Confederation and the distribution of legislative powers across Canada. Amongst the many submissions were two on forming a national library by the British Columbia and Ontario Library Associations in March and April 1938. These briefs envisioned four national functions. There would be a central repository of library information together with a national union catalogue of holdings. As well, the national library would issue books and liaise with cultural organizations, such as the National Museum, National Gallery, Public Archives, and Library of Parliament. The Commission sympathized with these points and stated a national library was within the federal mandate when it reported in 1940.

During the Second World War, the Canadian Library Council and prominent university librarians continued to press the case from Queen’s and Manitoba. The Ontario Library Review published E. Cockburn Kyte’s “A National Library for Canada,” in 1939 and Elizabeth Dafoe argued for “A National Library” in the May 1944 issue of Food for Thought. The General Librarian of Parliament, Felix Desrochers, added his support in the Canadian Historical Review in 1944. But it was the Canadian Library Council, the predecessor to the Canadian Library Association, that best defined the activities that a national library might undertake in its visionary Canada Needs Libraries in 1945:

• collecting national literature and history cooperatively with the Dominion Archives, National Gallery, and other national bodies;
• assembling a central national reference collection;
• lending items to other libraries;
• providing microfilm, photostat, and other copying services for clients;
• compiling a union catalogue to identify materials available through inter-library loan on a national scale;
• co-ordinating book information with audio-visual aids in co-operation with the National Film Board, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, etc;
• administering collections of Canadian books for exhibition abroad
• publishing bibliographical works about Canada, e.g. Canadian Catalogue of Books,Canadian Periodical Index, etc.

After the formation of the Canadian Library Association in June 1946, these points were adopted and resubmitted in an influential brief to the federal government in December 1946. This particular effort, A National Library for Canada, elaborated on the benefits of a national library and the broad support the concept had garnered from other national groups: the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Historical Association, the Canadian Political Science Association, and the Social Science Research Council of Canada. This grouping of professional organizations was an influential catalyst in convincing federal Members of Parliament in the value of a national library. There were many benefits to Canada (p. 11):

A National Library for Canada would contribute to the organization of precise knowledge, thus ensuring the most intelligent use of the country’s resources, human and material.

The existence of a research centre on Canada would encourage the writing not only of factual works useful to the legislator, administrator, business man, farmer, student, but also of imaginative works based on research which would help to interpret Canada to Canadians and also to the world.

The prestige of the National Library and its many activities would stimulate the whole library movement. Individual libraries and citizens in all parts of the country would receive assistance from its publications and travelling exhibitions, its reference and cataloguing services, and from the speeding-up of inter-library loans through use of its union catalogues.

The international services of the National Library would play an essential role in Canada’s expanding international relations.

To sum up, the National Library would be a centre of intellectual life of Canada, and a guarantee that the sources of its history will be preserved, and a symbol of our national concern with the things of the mind and the spirit.

To expedite matters, the 1946 brief of the Canadian Library Association concluded a national service could begin immediately and be housed in temporary quarters: “the National Library can begin as an Information Bureau and Bibliographical Centre, while at the same time, the investigation of the whole question of the ultimate organization of the National Library, its book stack and the building that will be needed to house its collections and its services is continued” (p. 3). The brief urged the government to form a committee reporting to a cabinet minister(s) to investigate its establishment. By June 1948 a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament approved a plan for a Bibliographic Centre as the first step towards the creation of a National Library.

In September 1948, Dr. W. Kaye Lamb was appointed Dominion Archivist, a position which he accepted on condition that he should pave the way for the establishment of a national library. Dr. Lamb had served as Provincial Archivist and Librarian of British Columbia from 1934-40 before becoming Librarian of the University of British Columbia. He had helped author British Columbia’s brief to the Royal Commission in March 1938. He set to work by establishing the Canadian Bibliographic Centre in May 1950. Dr. Lamb presented another statement to the Massey Commission in support of a national library program, a project the Royal Commission on Arts, Letters, and Sciences (1951) endorsed. Then, Dr. Lamb helped draft the National Library Act passed by Parliament in 1952 and officially became Canada’s first National Librarian on 1 January 1953.

Further Reading:
A National Library for Canada; A Brief Presented to the Government of Canada by The Canadian Library Association/Association Canadienne des Bibliothèques, The Royal Society of Canada, The Canadian Historical Association, The Canadian Political Science Association, and The Social Science research Council of Canada, December 1946 is available online at Library and Archives Canada as a submission to the Massey Commission.

"A PLEA FOR A NATIONAL LIBRARY" — A CANADIAN ODYSSEY BEGINS In 1911

Just over a century ago, in 1911, Lawrence Burpee published an article entitled “A Plea for a National Library” in Andrew MacPhail’s February issue of University Magazine, an influential literary magazine to which many leading Canadian academics, politicians, and authors contributed. Burpee came up with a great idea: he suggested that the Dominion government create a national library in Ottawa close to Parliament Hill. Just like other European and American countries! Burpee obviously was dissatisfied that Canada lagged behind other nations. He asked: “Are we Canadians either so inferior, or so superior, to the rest of the world, that we cannot use, or do not need, such an institution?” Obviously, Burpee was a progressive thinker!

You can read his entire article on the Internet Archive. Some parts of “A Plea” are inspirational, even in today’s jaded atmosphere about the benefits of government institutions. Only the more important points from Burpee’s piece are highlighted here. What did he propose? He wanted Parliament to enact legislation to create a national library, to erect a suitable building to house national collections, and for the library to serve as both a reference and circulating library. He felt the new entity should work with the National Archives, which had been established in 1872, and with the Library of Parliament: “What is really needed is a Canadian national library, working in harmony with the two existing institutions, but filling its own field, a field which belongs neither to the national archives nor to the legislative library.”

Burpee was impressed with the workings of the Library of Congress in Washington. A smaller Canadian equivalent could be started by removing more general items from the Library of Parliament that did not suit parliamentary use, thereby establishing the working core of a national collection, about 200,000 books he estimated. By housing the national library close to Parliament Hill, a synergy of sorts could be built by employing new ideas and new technologies. “The national library would then be within easy reach of the archives, the Library of Parliament, and all the government departments, and, as has been done in Washington, it could, if necessary, be connected with the other government buildings by pneumatic tubes, for the conveyance of both messages and books.” Of course, the national library could lend to major libraries across Canada, both public and college ones.  At a time when Canadian college research libraries were meager in content and free public library service in short supply, even in major cities, his proposal was a cogent one.

Nonetheless, sufficient support for Burpee’s vision was short lived. The Dominion government had more immediate considerations, like equipping the newly founded Canadian navy, and fighting an bitterly contested election. Forty years on, Burpee was still pressing for a national library. He penned a short article, “Only Canada has no National Library” in Saturday Night on August 21, 1943, a few years before he died. He had a dream but did not live to see its fruition.

But others took up his cause. Libraries in Canada, a national study conducted by John Ridington, George H. Locke, and Mary J.L. Black, which was released in 1933, also argued the merits of a national library. Later, after the Second World War, the Canadian Library Association, in conjunction with other national organizations, issued a call for its formation in Ottawa. The idea Burpee advocated was too sound to remain a vision—it would become a reality in 1953.

LILLIAN HELENA SMITH WEBSITE

There are not many websites dedicated to Canadian librarians, so these web pages on Lillian H. Smith at are very welcome: just go to Lillian H. Smith to check through extensive biographic and bibliographic information, images, and may other features about her life.

There is a wealth of information available here on Smith's career, her writings, and research about her work. Smith started in Toronto Public Library in 1912 as the first trained children's librarian in Canada. She stayed for four decades before her retirement and developed the finest children's services in the county. Toronto's branch, the Lillian H. Smith Library, opened in 1995. to honour her contributions.

This terrific site created by Michael Manchester at the University of Western Ontario.

THE INSTITUTE OF PROFESSIONAL LIBRARIANS OF ONTARIO

Recently a paper on IPLO was published by Greg Linnell in the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science : The Institute of Professional Librarians of Ontario; On the History and Historiography of a Professional Association. Greg is interested in library history and is currently at the Library Services Centre in Kitchener, ON.

Greg Linnell's descriptive analysis of the histories of the Institute of Professional Librarians of Ontario (1960–1976) reveals not only the circumstances surrounding the creation, growth, and decline of this singular expression of the professionalization of librarianship but also foregrounds the ways in which the historical narration of the profession must look beyond the traditional delineation of intrinsic traits in order to circumscribe librarianship more adequately. To that end, consideration is given to one important factor, the Royal Commission Inquiry into Civil Rights (1964–71). It is evident that historical recovery of this sort is crucial to the profession’s self-understanding as it negotiates its contemporary stance with respect to both librarians and the publics that they serve.

Greg has agreed to let me post this here, so please take time to read about. IPLO was an important Association, esp. in the 1960s, that expressed many librarians' views about professionalism in Ontario and their efforts to create a professional organization that could speak for librarians in all types of libraries.

To download Greg's article just go to : IPLO

If you have information IPLO that you would like to share, just point to the comment and let us know about your ideas.

LUCY MAUD MONTGOMERY'S ONTARIO LIBRARY CONNECTIONS

There are many enthusiastic Lucy Maud fans and scholars across the world, and the recent University of Guelph library's Montgomery conference held last weekend (Oct. 24 - 27) was a great success.

What many people do not know about are the library connections with Montgomery here in Ontario. After she moved to Swansea (now Toronto) in 1935, she became a library trustee on the local library committee, the Swansea Memorial Free Public Library that had been formed after WWI. Unfortunately, this coincided to some extent with Montgomery's later years that often saw her slip into a depressed state for some time (e.g., she really did not make many entries in her famous journal after the start of WWII). She did not write about libraries .... unfortunately for us. As a trustee, Montgomery would have been responsible for attending regular meetings, looking at finances, approving book purchases, etc. in the small Swansea operation.

But there is another connection as well. In 1929, Montgomery was asked to publish a short autobiography in the old Ontario Library Review that ran from 1916-1982. This was part of a series of articles by "famous" Canadian authors, and of course Montgomery easily qualified on that score. It makes for interesting reading, especially her stated love for poetry, her recollection about her father, and her obvious interest in her own book collection.

As this article in OLR (published by the Ontario Dept. of Education) is sometimes difficult to get a hold of, I am reprinting it here in this post as follows:
_____________________

An Autobiographical Sketch

By L.M. Montgomery

I wish it were permissible to write fiction about oneself when asked for “an autobiographical sketch.” I get so tired of writing the same old facts over and over. As Anne herself said, I could imagine a heap of things about myself far more interesting than what I know! Any one of the “dream lives” I have lived by the score would be really thrilling.

I was born – praise to the gods! – in Prince Edward Island – the colourful little land of ruby and emerald sapphire. I come of Scottish ancestry, with a dash of English and Irish from several “grands” and “greats” and a French origin back in the mists of antiquity. The Montgomery’s emigrated from France in wake of the French Princess who married a Scottish King. But they became so Scotchified eventually that they even had a tartan of their own.

My mother died when I was a baby and I was brought up by my grandparents in the old Macneill homestead at Cavendish – eleven miles from a railway and twenty–four from a town, but only half a mile from one of the finest sea-beaches in the world – the old North Shore.

I went to the “district school” there from six to sixteen. Out of school I lived a simple wholesome happy life on the old farm, ranging through fields and woods, climbing over the rocky “capes” at the shore, picking berries in the “barrens” and apples in big orchards. I am especially thankful my childhood was spent in a spot where there were many trees – trees with personalities of their own, planted and tended by hands long dead, bound up with everything of joy and sorrow that visited my life. The old King orchard in my books, “The Story Girl,” and “The Golden Road,” was drawn from life.

My little existence was very simple and quiet. But it never held a dull moment for me. I had in my imagination a passport to fairyland. In a twinkling I could whisk myself into regions of wonderful adventure, unhampered by any restrictions of reality.

For anything I know I might have been born reading and writing. I have no recollection of learning to do either. I devoured every book I could lay my hands on and new most of “Paradise Lost” and “The Pilgrim’s Progress” by heart when I was eight. Novels were taboo, but fortunately there was no ban on poetry. I could revel it will in “the music of the immortals” – Tennyson, Byron, Scott, Milton, Burns. And one wonderful day when I was nine years old I discovered that I could write “poetry” myself!

It was called “Autumn,” and I wrote it on the back of an old post-office, “letter bill” – for writing paper was not too plentiful in that old farmhouse, where nothing was ever written save an occasional letter. I read it aloud to father. Father said it didn’t sound much like poetry. “It’s blank verse,” I cried. “Very blank,” said father.

I determined that my next poem should rhyme. And I wrote yards of verses about flowers and months and trees and stars and sunsets and addressed “Lines” to my friends. When I was thirteen I began sending verses to the Island weekly paper – and never heard either of or from them. Perhaps this is because I did not send any return stamps – being then in blissful ignorance of such a requirement.

Before this, however, when I was eleven years old, I had begun writing stories. I had a boxful of them – many tragic creations in which nearly everybody died. The “happy ending” was a thing unknown to me then. In those tales, “battle, murder and sudden death” were the order of the day.

When I was fifteen I had my first ride on a railway train, and it was a long one. I went out to Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and spent a year with father who was living there. During that winter I sent a “poem,” written around one of the dramatic legends of the old North Shore, down to Charlottetown Patriot – and the Patriot printed it –thereby giving me the greatest moment of my life!

Being now, as I thought, fairly launched on a career, I kept sending verses to various papers and began to plume myself on being quite the literary person. I returned to Prince Edward Island the next summer, attended school for another year, then went to Prince of Wales College, Charlottetown, to qualify for a teacher’s licence. After that I taught a year. During these years I was writing all sorts of stuff, mainly verses and short stories, but had never succeeded in getting into any periodical that paid anything. All the stuff I sent to other magazines came promptly back. I used to feel woefully discouraged at times over those icy rejection slips. But I kept on. Whatever gifts the gods had denied me they had at least dowered me with stick-to-it-iveness!

After teaching a year I went to Halifax and spent a winter taking a selected course in English literature at Dalhousie College. One day in that winter I got a letter from the editor of an American juvenile magazine accepting a short story I had sent him and enclosing a check for five whole dollars. Never in all my life have I felt so rich as I did then! Did I spend it for needed boots and gloves? I did not. I wanted to get something I could keep forever in memory of having “arrived.” I hied me down town and purchased leather-bound dollar editions of Milton, Byron, Wordsworth, Longfellow, and Tennyson. I have repented me of many things rashly bought in my life, but never of those. I have them yet – dingy and shabby now – but with the springs of eternal life still bubbling freshly in them. Not that I do not love many modern poets. I do. But the old magic was good and remains good.

I taught two more years. Then grandfather died and I went home to stay with grandmother. She and I lived there alone together in the old farmhouse for thirteen years, with the exception of one winter which I spent in Halifax working as proof-reader and general handy-man on the staff of the Daily Echo. In those years I wrote literally thousands of poems and stories – most of the latter being juveniles for the United States periodicals, the Canadian magazine market at that time being practically non-existent.

I had always hoped to write a book – but I never seemed able to make a beginning. I have always hated beginning a story. When I get the first paragraph written I always feel as if it were half done. To begin a book seemed quite a stupendous task. Besides, I did not see how I could get time from my regular writing hours. In the end I never deliberately set out to write a book. It just “happened.”

In the spring of 1904 I was looking over my note book of plots for an idea for a short serial I had been asked to write for a certain Sunday School paper. I found a faded entry, written many years before, “Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for boy. By mistake girl is sent them.” I thought this would do. I began to “block out” the chapters, devise incidents, and “brood up” my heroine. Anne began to expand in such a fashion that she soon seemed very real to me. I thought it rather a shame to waste her on an ephemeral seven-chapter serial. Then the thought came, “Make a book of it. You have the central idea and the heroine. All you need do is to spread it over enough chapters to amount a book.”

The result was “Anne of Green Gables.” I wrote it in the evenings after my regular day’s work was done. The next thing was to find a publisher. I typed it myself on my old second-hand typewriter that never made the capitals plain and wouldn’t print “w” at all. Then I began sending it out – and kept on, because the publishers did not jump at it. It came back to me five times. The sixth time it was accepted. “Anne of Green Gables” was published in 1908. I did not dream it would be the success it has been. I thought girls in their teens might like it but that was the only audience I hoped to reach. Yet men and women who are grandparents, boys at school and college, statesmen at the helm of empires, soldiers in the trenches, old pioneers in the Australian bush, missionaries in China, monks in remote monasteries, Mohammedans in Java and red-headed girls all over the world have written to me of the delight they found in Anne.

With the publication of Green Gables a long struggle was over. Since then I have published thirteen novels and a volume of poems. Poetry was my first love and I have always regretted being false to it. But one must live.

Seventeen years ago I married a Presbyterian minister and came to Ontario to live. I like Ontario muchly but anyone who had once loved “the only Island there is” never really loves any other place. And so the scene of all my books, except the “Blue Castle” has been laid there.

The “Blue Castle” is in Muskoka. Muskoka is the only place I’ve ever been in that could be my Island’s rival in my heart. So I wanted to write a story about it.

My new book, “Magic for Marigold,” will be out next summer. I’ve gone back to “The Island” in it. For there the fairies still abide despite the raucous shrieks of motor cars. There are still a few spots where one who knows may find them.

Ontario Library Review, February 1929