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Thursday, August 16, 2018

REGIONAL LIBRARY SYSTEMS IN ONTARIO, 1965-1985

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.


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.

Saturday, August 04, 2018

THE MODERN PUBLIC LIBRARY EMERGES IN ONTARIO, 1920-1965: BRIEF SYNOPSIS

The idea of the modern public library as an energetic influence promoting its services to the entire community arrived in Ontario after most Carnegie buildings were in place. Of course, the service ethic had existed before 1920, but the value of stewardship--the library as guardian or storehouse of treasures--had loomed larger for decades. As the service value progressed into the 1950s, the public library served as a place for collecting the best books and for making them useful to as many children and adults as possible. The library became a more accessible community resource and an active force: books were conveniently arranged on “open” shelves, and the librarian became a guide or intermediary to assist patrons. The modern library was an appealing idea (one not wholly accepted in some of Ontario’s hundreds of municipalities) that successfully prevailed despite the austerities of the Great Depression and the Second World War.

Following the First World War, Ontario’s tax-supported public libraries were at the forefront of a growing national movement to supply reading materials in local communities. In a nation-wide survey by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics for 1920-21, almost 90% of free public libraries were located in Ontario (186 of 210) and respectively held 75% of the total volumes, provided 67% of the total circulation, and spent about 68% of Canada’s current total. At this time, just over 50% of Ontario’s 2.9 million population was served by free libraries. Of course, many librarians were not satisfied with the status quo: members of the Ontario Library Association (OLA) and the office of the provincial Inspector of Public Libraries were formulating ideas to improve library service along “modern” lines. A new publication, Ontario Library Review, founded in 1916 by the Department of Education, gave voice to these ideas.

The new Public Libraries of Act of 1920 created a stable framework for Ontario library development for more than four decades. The Inspector of Public Libraries from 1916-29, William O. Carson, favoured per capita funding for libraries based on local community size, improved support from the provincial agency in the Department of Education, and better training for libraries to improve administration, services, and book selection. Carson, an influential leader in the library community, often stated that trained personnel and improved book stocks were the keys to library development, and he pursued this course until his untimely death in 1929. In 1920, his department published an important treatise on reference work and information sources to be used in public services. For smaller communities, the Inspector’s office provided basic training courses in librarianship in the Ontario Library School in Toronto from 1916-27. This school evolved on the University of Toronto campus and provided hundreds of students with a bachelor’s degree that became the necessary entry into librarianship. Carson also was actively involved in promoting library services in adult education and developing Ontario’s travelling library service for rural and northern areas. As a result of his leadership, there was a surge in library output during the boom years of the 1920s.

Year    Prov Grant    Expenses     Book Expenses     Vols           Circulation      Pop Served
1920    $ 27,686      $  738,010     $ 120,131          1,537,517       6,316,340      1,523,873
1930    $ 39,079      $1,239,798    $ 243,145           2,142,445     11,433,208     1,976,678
Gain    41.2%            68%             102.4%                44%                   81%           29.7%
Table I: Public library growth 1920-30 (Source: Ontario Report of the Minister of Education)

At the local level, the principal city libraries--Windsor, London, Hamilton, and Ottawa--were prepared to emulate the work of Toronto Public Library. Toronto opened the Boys and Girls House in 1922, the first children’s library building in the British Empire. During the same period, there was a conscious effort by public librarians to support efforts on the literary front as well. Librarians, such as George Locke, promoted library ideas and supported reading and writing by publishing in the Canadian Bookman and inviting authors to contribute to the Ontario Library Review and by supporting activities for the newly formed Canadian Book Week organized by the Canadian Authors Association from 1921-57. However, both the OLA and the CAA were small organizations, and local efforts were often sporadic. Dr. Locke, of course, published When Canada was New France in 1919, a work that became a provincial school text. Other librarians, such as B. Mabel Dunham and Fred Dela Fosse, published historical novels.

With the death of William Carson in 1929 and the onset of the Great Depression, library expansion in Ontario halted. Between 1929/30 and 1934/35, free public libraries reduced their expenditures from $1.25 million to $ 1.01 before the totals trended up to $1.28 million in 1939/40. In the Depression era, survival, even in the largest libraries, was the mark of success. In Toronto, book circulation increased to 4.5 million while finances eroded: there was an emphasis on nonfiction and technical works as the jobless read books on careers and employment. In rural areas, Ontario communities began to experiment with co-operative library systems based on county jurisdictions despite the absence of enabling legislation. It was the first recognition that the traditional Ontario model library serving one community (however small and impoverished) was not adequate for its users. Only a few new buildings appeared, Ottawa’s branch (Rideau) and Kenilworth branch in Hamilton being a notable exceptions. Throughout these difficult years, Ontario libraries continued to promote reading.

At Windsor, a community that briefly went into bankruptcy and amalgamated with neighbouring municipalities, the chief librarian, Anne Hume, continued to emphasize linkages with adult education. Yet, she had to suspend issuing the Canadian Periodical Index in 1933 five years after its inception by her library; this ground-breaking endeavour resumed in 1938 centred at the University of Toronto. Toronto’s new chief librarian, Charles R. Sanderson, promoted collections via radio, and TPL’s Marie Tremaine began publishing works on Canadian bibliography and printing. The landmark national 1933 report on Canadian libraries headed by John Ridington, George Locke, and Mary Black, Libraries in Canada, applauded the development of bilingual collections at Ottawa and collections in German at Kitchener. As well, Ontario librarians became more conscious of the need to plan systematically and create provincial or national schemes for services that the Ridington report had recommended. The OLA organized joint conferences with Quebec and Maritime librarians at Ottawa in 1937 and then Montreal in 1939, where the Canadian Children’s Library Association was formed to promote reading on a national scale. In 1938, the OLA presented a Brief to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations advocating better coordination across Canada and the foundation of a national library at Ottawa.

With the onset of WWII, public libraries turned attention to providing reading materials for the armed forces and to supporting efforts on the home front. The new Inspector of libraries, Angus Mowat, entered the service and encouraged book camp libraries. Upon his return, he turned his attention to post-war planning and revision of the provincial library act. The war years were lean ones, the major highlight being the opening of the new London Public Library, with its modern architectural style and open design, in 1941. Literary efforts, such as the celebration of 500 years of printing, continued, but the war effort limited activities. Charles Sanderson worked with other Canadian librarians to form the Canadian Library Council, and develop a national approach to library issues.

As the war drew to a close, Mowat and other leaders planned a post-war revival. Mowat published a popular pamphlet outlining the need for libraries, the OLA lobbied the province for better legislation and expanded provincial library service. Efforts to create a national library association finally came to fruition after the first conference of the Canadian Library Association (CLA) met at Hamilton in summer 1946 with Freda Waldon (Hamilton Public Library) elected as its first president. In the immediate postwar period, plans for library service revolved around larger administrative units, especially co-operative county libraries. These county operations had developed in southwestern Ontario to provide bookmobile services rural populations and to school children. Also, there were efforts to establish a Provincial Library at Toronto; improved legislation to provide for certification of librarians; and better financing. As political circumstances evolved, the concept of a Provincial Library proved unworkable, in part because a parallel effort to lobby the federal government to establish a National Library at Ottawa succeeded in 1953. Consequently, the OLA and Ontario’s libraries turned to regional and county systems to service large parts of the province and to develop professional activities and plans at the national level in CLA. Provincial expansion in the post-war period began slowly but accelerated at the end of the 1950s.

Year    Population 000s    Population Served 000s    Circulation 000s    Volumes 000s
1945        4,000                         2,561                               13,253                3,830
1950        4,471                         2,919                               15,802                4,442
1955        5,266                         3,597                               19,310                5,516
1960        6,111                         4,178                                31,962               7,438
1965        6,788                         5,303                                44,736             10,060
Table II: Post-war public library activity, 1945-65 (Source: Ontario Library Review and Ontario Ministry of Treasury, Economics, and Intergovernmental Affairs, Ontario Statistics)

As Ontario’s population increased and became more diverse through post-war immigration, libraries kept pace with growth and expanded their range of services. Larger libraries were beginning to use revenue, formerly reserved for books and periods, to finance film and audio services. Print collections expanded as well, and librarians continued to contribute to book fairs, weeks, and publications: Josephine Phelan, who worked at Toronto Public Library, won a Governor General’s prize in 1951 for The Ardent Exile, a study on Thomas D’Arcy McGee and Lillian Smith published The Unreluctant Years in 1953, a critical work on children’s literature that remains useful today. The Edgar Osborne collection of early children’s books was established in Toronto after 1949. Young Canada Book Week, launched in 1949, was marked each year with readings and storytimes.

With the increased output in book publishing, particularly realistic fiction, it was not unnatural that public libraries began to face more scrutiny as guardians of public morality. Censorship issues remained mostly in the background because “controversial books” were often kept separate and had to be requested. But after the popular 1959 bestseller, Lolita, was missed on many library shelves, censorship issues irrupted in public. Faced with changing literary standards (even the Ontario Legislature was examining complaints about books) and criticisms of traditional book selection from Robert Fulford and Pierre Berton in the Toronto Star, librarians and trustees began to accept that social values of behaviour and language required formal policy statements that logically framed basic selection issues in terms of their collections. Nonetheless, it would take some time, most of the 1960s, before more controversial reading material, such as Playboy, would reach library magazine racks. In one area, non-English language collections, there was some progress. Toronto, of course, had well-established “foreign” collections in about 60 languages, but many smaller libraries found difficulty financing these collections and procuring suppliers. For its part, the provincial government long-delayed commissioning a study devoted to examining non-English collections until 1980.

As the decade of the 1950s closed, it was apparent that a Provincial Library would not be formed, and further planning would be necessary. A report by W. Stewart Wallace on provincial options appeared in 1957; it recommended a modest strengthening the role of the Public Libraries Branch headed by Angus Mowat. In the same year, county library legislation replacing library co-operatives was introduced, followed by regional co-operative legislation in 1959. A revamped Provincial Library Service was charged to promote these schemes. In Toronto, where a metropolitan government had been enacted in 1953, the 1960 report by the American academic, Ralph Shaw, suggested library amalgamation and centralized services. Five years later, a comprehensive provincial “St. John Report” by an American consulting firm preceded systematic changes in the Public Libraries Act in 1966. It was a thorough review that swept away the long-standing model law that had existed since 1920, notably the existence of Association Library boards that were not eligible to receive municipal tax revenue or the per capita municipal support clauses mandated for free libraries. The new 1966 Public Libraries Act formed the structure for rapid, and conflicting, developments into the mid-1980s. A long era of distinctive public library development was at an end in Ontario.

A few biographies for further reading.

Mary J.L. Black, Fort William Public Library, 1909-37
William O. Carson, Inspector of Public Libraries, 1916-29
B. Mabel Duham, Kitchener Public Library, 1908-44
George H. Locke, Toronto Public Library, 1908-37
Angus Mowat, Director of Public Libraries Branch, 1937-60
Charles Sanderson, Toronto Public Library, 1937-56
Lillian Helena Smith, Toronto Public Library 1912-52

Sunday, March 11, 2018

CANADIAN COLONIAL SUBSCRIPTION LIBRARIES, 1775-1850

From 1775 to 1850, small membership subscription libraries acted as public libraries dispensing educational resources and recreational reading to Canadian users on a geographic-community or common-interest reading basis. The variety, number, and collective status of subscription libraries ushered in the persistent nineteenth-century concept of the semi-private public library administered by trustees and populated by members who voluntarily agreed to accept entry charges, annual dues, and fundraising. The collegial space provided by the subscription library fostered a greater sense of publicness in an emerging Canadian nation before 1850. It also forged numerous associative identities in localities for like-minded reading groups. Subscription library development reveals that significant attributes of post-1850 municipal public libraries--especially the public library association which continues today--were inherited from Canada's colonial library era.

Beginning at Quebec City (1779) and Montreal (1796) and spreading to other colonies and the Canadian west, a variety of subscription libraries were established ranging from the exclusive share-holding archetype (e.g., at Halifax) to the more inclusive, general interest library supported by modest entry charges and annual fees in small towns and cites. Over time, these libraries developed on an irregular, parochial basis in differing colonial environments, although common public features are evident, such as claims for societal betterment. It was not unusual for a subscription library to be integrated with the work of specialized societies and associations (esp. in Quebec), or for the library to be aligned with news or reading rooms. This multifaceted public interface helped to bridge reading from the private to the public realm, to improve access to print resources, and to invest libraries with a communal significance in the Victorian period before Confederation. By the mid-point of the nineteenth century, subscription libraries occupied the middle ground between the personal realm and the state where formation of ideas on private liberality, community interests, and governance converged.

In the course of seven decades, subscription type libraries evolved into "library associations" regulated by public statutes stipulating control by the members and an elected governing board. These libraries were identified less with earlier joint-stock, proprietary, or subscription business terminology and more with the appellation "public library" that was in use throughout the entire period, i.e. a library that was accessible to all residents of a community, but not generally free because it required voluntary personal payments. These small libraries performed a public function but were not state agencies. In some instances, they received token payments from different government levels, but legal sanction for state financial aid did not exist in legislative acts. In the evolution of public libraries in Canada, attempts by subscription managers to achieve a public profile by seeking financial support from colonial parliaments and by staking claims to publicness (the interests of the people as a whole) were significant steps.

At the midway point of the nineteenth century, the Library Association and Mechanics’ Institute Act of 1851 became a critical foundation for the subscription library’s conversion to the Canadian "association library." In accordance with enabling legislation that would become the hallmark of twentieth-century Canadian provincial public library legislation, the 1851 law for the two Canadas (Ontario and Quebec) recognized that a public library association was to be available for persons on a voluntary membership basis. The law established that library associations would be governed by local boards of trustees independent from control by municipal politicians (a "special purpose body" later identified by political commentators and academics on local government). Further, it provided public recognition of association libraries, thereby creating the opportunity for provincial grants which supplemented local fundraising efforts. Similar legislative arrangements in other provinces, such as British Columbia, ensured that the subscription model, re-labelled as a ‘public library association,’ would continue to coexist with its "free library" cousin well into the twentieth century and beyond.

Complete information is available in my article published in Library and Information History, a quarterly journal publishing articles by authors on all subjects and all periods relating to the history of libraries and librarianship and to the history of information. The article can be viewed at:

https://doi.org/10.1080/17583489.2017.1413037

For access to a free link with a limited number of PDFs, go to

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/xNpDQbtFGIhgcdeiTxib/full

Tuesday, February 06, 2018

CANADIAN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES IN THE POSTWAR PERIOD, 1945-1960

The general history of college and university library development in Canada has not been examined extensively. There are few studies that synthesize the entire history of Canadian academic libraries and normally two core themes are emphasized—library growth and progressive advances in librarianship. But these two perspectives can be applied to other types of libraries and do not serve to highlight the distinctiveness of academic libraries or librarians. There are some valuable, informative accounts of Canadian libraries in higher education that are commonly regarded as "institutional history." Because the library is positioned within its parent institution, librarians have understandably chronicled library support for the needs and plans of a particular university or college. Individual libraries, such as those at the Universities of Toronto and Alberta, are notable in this regard: Robert Blackburn’s Evolution of the Heart: A History of the University of Toronto Library up to 1981; and Merill Distad’s The University of Alberta Library: The First Hundred Years, 1908-2008. These institutional histories may be considered the foundation for more general histories that explore particular themes and developments. Added to these local studies are are many other contributions as articles, pamphlets, and theses. Many works concentrate on more recent decades after the 1960s when “growth” and “progress” were central features.

Of course, the development of academic libraries on a national basis as well as the careers of the “college librarian” or the “university librarian” began before the Sixties. I wrote, in 2016, about the contribution of the Carnegie Corporation of New York (CCNY) to the development of Canadian university and college libraries during the Great Depression. This was one instance of a change in philosophy of service. From 1932-35, thirty-four institutions of higher education shared in library grants totaling $214,800 in a national (Canada and Newfoundland) project conducted by a Canadian Advisory Group established by the CCNY. George H. Locke, Toronto Public Library, headed the group which awarded Carnegie financial aid for the improvement of undergraduate print collections. The attempts by Canadian administrators to adapt library collections, organization, and staffing to local circumstances to improve interwar undergraduate library services was an unusual step towards national thinking about the role of college and university libraries. For this post, see The Carnegie Corporation Advisory Group on Canadian College Libraries, 1930-35, posted in 2016 with an accompanying link to my article published in the journal, Historical Studies in Education/Revue d'histoire de l'éducation.

Another period, the postwar (1945-1960), is another seldom referenced period that is of interest. After the Second World War, the expansion of Canadian post-secondary was notable for several modernizing trends: the infusion of federal funds for academic research, the frequent erection of campus buildings, increased enrollments, the establishment of new universities, the independence of previously affiliated small colleges, and the creation of comprehensive research efforts and graduate programs. In this changing environment, the per-eminence of the humanities and undergraduate teaching gave way to scientific and technological research, business and professional orientations, and graduate studies.

Mills Memorial Library, n.d., McMaster University, Hamilton, opened 1951

 Libraries and librarians responded to these challenges in many similar ways. There are many contemporary accounts in relation to library architecture, the acquisition and organization of collections, administrative library structures and staffing, services for faculty and students, and efforts by librarians to realize professional standing, to achieve recognition as “professional librarians.” The architectural redefinition of libraries, the impetus to establish research collections, the maturation of academic librarianship, and the increasing complexity of library operations were prominent features in the postwar period. The gradual evolution of academic libraries toward more uniform organizational purposes and structures on a national basis following World War II can be considered a period of “mid-century modernization” that preceded the more memorable and better documented decades of the 1960s and later.

The postwar history of academic libraries was deeply influenced not just by local conditions and persons but also by broader trends occurring in the nation’s universities and colleges and the library community across North America. Examination of sources for the period mirror general currents in the Canadian post-secondary sector that made library provision of resources, assistance, and information more integral to the work of students and faculty. Of course, the national pace of change from 1945 to 1960 was moderate compared with the succeeding period, the dynamic 1960s that loom large in the history of Canadian libraries. The Sixties ushered in many educational changes, especially the establishment of provincial systems of higher education and vastly improved funding for libraries in higher education. Nonetheless, library development in the 1960s should not be viewed simply as a break with the past but as an outgrowth of many changes already underway. The national pace of change from 1945 to 1960 was moderate compared with the succeeding period, the dynamic 1960s that loom large in the history of Canadian libraries. The Sixties ushered in many educational changes, especially the  establishment of provincial systems of higher education. Library development in the 1960s should not be viewed simply as a break with the past but as an outgrowth of many changes already underway.

More complete information on the postwar era is in my article, “Postwar Canadian Academic Libraries, 1945–60,” at the Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship website.


Wednesday, January 31, 2018

CANADIAN VICTORIAN PUBLIC LIBRARIES BEFORE 1900

The common characteristics of free public libraries that were legislated in Ontario (1882), the City of Saint John (1883), and British Columbia (1891) served as a guide for public library development towards the end of the nineteenth century. In this version, the 'free public library' or 'free library' was a municipal institution governed by a board of management and funded primarily by local taxes. These libraries were accessible to all community residents who were not charged at the point of entry. Local decisions, based on provincial legislation, mostly determined the establishment and governance of libraries. Community members participated on a voluntary basis and the nature and extent of services varied from one community to another.

However, widespread acceptance of this 'model' developed slowly, in part because other views identified the 'public library' as one that was accessible to all residents of a community, but not generally free or a constituent part of local government because it relied on voluntary personal payments or contributions from philanthropic individuals, community groups, or persons willing to pay a membership fee. This type of library performed a public function but was not a state agent, i.e. the municipal, provincial, or federal government. Often, the establishment of libraries open free to the public was furthered by philanthropic efforts and managed privately.  In some cases, these libraries received assistance and direction from government in recognition of their beneficial public function.

It is these atypical or hybrid libraries that will be discussed here in a Canadian context. They were public libraries open freely to the public without direct charge or with small personal (or family) charges. They were clearly regarded as community-based service agencies. In many ways, they characterized the importance of nineteenth-century ideas about voluntarism, civic promotion, and public-private partnerships working in the interest of the public good. They were distinctive in their own right and founded in all parts of British North America as the following few examples illustrate.

New Westminster, B.C. --- In 1865, New Westminster was the capital of the mainland colony of British Columbia. There were two initial inducements to establish an institute and public library: a collection of books offered by the disbanded Columbia Detachment of Royal Engineers and Queen Victoria's donation of a copy of her late husband Prince Albert's speeches "to the public libraries of her more important colonies." The New Westminster Library and Reading Room opened on 15 August 1865 on Columbia Street supported by a grant from the colonial government and by membership and regular subscription rates, e.g. to borrow books a member paid $5 a year. The library operated from a building that formerly housed the colony's official Mint and was run by a board of management composed of four colonial officials and the president of the municipal council. This happy state of affairs continued for a few years until the colony's government funding was withdrawn by 1868. Subscriptions--a common method of financing 19th-century local libraries--supported library operations thereafter until 1890. At this point, the federal government offered the Mint property to the city provided a new building would be erected and opened as a free public library. The offer was accepted: the mint was demolished and a new building opened in 1892 with renewed funding from the municipality. For most this period, the library was never a 'free library' in the modern sense but exhibited a private-public partnership to support a 'public library' that was not unusual in the 19th century.

Montreal Free Library/Gésu Free Library (est. 1889) --- "Any bona fide resident of Montreal, irrespective of class or creed, is entitled, under certain conditions, to draw books from the Gésu Free Library." So read the introduction to an 1895 catalogue of circulating books for the Gésu Free Library opened on 4 October 1889. It was aimed at primarily English-speaking Catholic Montrealers. The library was essentially a parish library situated near the Jesuit Collège Sainte-Marie on Bleury Street. The library owed its existence to the dedicated work of a few ladies active in the Promoters of the League of the Sacred Heart who raised funds through annual afternoon teas. They desired to promote books based on Christian beliefs and morals. A small committee, ultimately responsible to the Sacred Heart Union, managed the library. By 1895, the library was circulating 15,000 books to an extended public in downtown Montreal and receiving in-kind donations and money from private citizens. The library offered titles in English, with translations of French authors who were mostly Catholic. Notably, however, there were fiction books for youngsters, such as Frances Hodgson Burnett's Little Lord Fauntleroy, at a time when many public libraries maintained age limits excluding children. There were also popular British novelists: Dickens, Trollope, Collins, Bulwer-Lytton, and Scott. American authors, such as Irving and Cooper, and few women authors, such as the Irish novelist Rosa Mullholland and Lady Georgiana Fullerton, were also available. The Montreal Free Library (sometimes called Sacred Heart Union Library) was not a municipal institution of course, it was a small library without charge at the point of entry and based on the ideas of its Catholic promoters that good reading (including fiction). Considering the mid-19th century controversies in Montreal about liberal works and fiction in general regarding the closure of the Institut Canadien de Montréal, this was a progressive step. Books for children was another important ingredient that would eventually become an orthodox feature of public libraries.

Fraser Institute, Montreal (est. 1885) --- In his 1870 will, the businessman Hugh Fraser placed most of his possessions amounting to $200,000 in trust to John J. C. Abbott and Frederick Torrence to establish an institution--a free public library, museum, and gallery open to all Montreal's citizens regardless of class and without any fee. The Fraser Institute was incorporated by a statute in 1870 that determined its course: "to aid in the diffusion of useful knowledge by affording free access, to all desirous of it, to books and to scientific objects and subjects, and to works of art, and for that purpose to erect appropriate buildings, and to procure books, scientific objects and subjects, and works of art, making always the acquisition and maintenance of a library the leading object to be kept in view." The Institute was managed by an elite Board of Governors; however, legal battles over Fraser's will delayed progress. Finally, a building was acquired and opened in 1885. The Institute, located at the corner of University Street and Dorchester Boulevard, initially was a reference library. A circulating collection commenced operations in 1889. Thus, after almost 20 years, the Institute was able to fulfill its original purpose outlined in the 1870 Act. Hugh Fraser's philanthropic vision involved a private institution--starting as an endowed library--operating in the public interest to further educational standards. It had a self-perpetuating incorporated private board of managers which, from time to time, made substantial contributions to its success and ensured free access.

Yarmouth Public Library, N.S. (est. 1872) -- Loran Ellis Baker, a prominent local businessman and politician, was instrumental in establishing a public library in Yarmouth in 1872. He first purchased 2,500 books and then presented a library, housed on the second floor of the Young and Baker building, to the town's citizens. The library was open for limited hours each week, but books circulated free of charge. All the library expenses, including the salary of a custodian who also maintained the library, were assumed by Baker. From time to time, townsfolk contributed books and material objects which eventually formed the basis for a museum. For more than a quarter-century, Baker's generous civic-mindedness served local residents well and in the 1890s, the Yarmouth Council made small appropriations to the library. When L.E. Baker died in 1899, his will stipulated that the library, its books and materials, as well as $8,000 would be made available to an incorporated body with the proviso that an equal amount be raised to establish a free public library and museum within five years. The Yarmouth Public Library and Museum was incorporated in September 1904. It was a 'free library' operated by a private body--the Yarmouth Free Public Library Association--that did not charge a fee for borrowing books. Residents could, however, pay a nominal fee to become a member of the Association managing the library and museum.

Town of Portland, N.B. (est. 1882) -- After Isaac Burpee, a prominent MP representing the local riding in Parliament, provided a small collection of books for Portland, the town turned to the local branch of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) for assistance. The members of this branch had built a Union Hall for the promotion of temperance and social and moral reforms, a fitting home of a town library. In 1882, the Portland WCTU incorporated (45 Vic. Chap 93, Act of NB 1882). The management of the library within the Hall was vested in the hands of the WCTU. Although the town provided support for the building and its maintenance, a small fee was also charged for library use by the WCTU library committee. This situation continued for a few years until Portland was annexed by Saint John in 1888, after which this library began to receive regular grants provided residents would not be charged for borrowing books and use of the library. The activity of the WCTU was an early manifestation of the interest by women's groups in promoting and maintaining public libraries across the nation.

Pettes Memorial Library, Que. (est. 1894) -- Narcissa Farrand Pettes built and donated a library to the village of Knowlton and Brome Township, Quebec, in memory of her late husband, Nathaniel Pettes. In the same year, 1894, the Quebec Legislature enacted An Act to Incorporate the "Pettes Memorial." This legislation stipulated that the Pettes building would be "a free public library and reading room, to be open to all honest and respectable persons whomsoever, of every rank in life, without distinction." Also, the building would function as "a lecture hall, to be used in connection with the said library and reading room, and solely for purposes calculated to promote and advance the interests and usefulness of the same." The purpose was clearly Victorian in mindset: the Pettes Memorial was intended to promote "the diffusion of useful knowledge, by affording free access, to all desiring it, to books, magazines and periodicals, making always the acquisition and maintenance of a library the leading object to be kept in view." An incorporated board of seven trustees was established to oversee the library. Narcissa Pettes also agreed to pay the salary for the librarian, to assume the cost of maintenance during her lifetime, and to leave funds to be invested to meet future annual expenses.

Halifax Citizens' Free Library, N.S. (est. 1864) --  At Halifax, the collections of two previous incorporated subscription libraries, the Mechanics' Library (est. 1831) and the Halifax Library (est. 1823-24), formed the nucleus of the Citizens’ Free Library by the mid-1870s in the city hall courthouse. In 1864, the city council accepted a generous offer from Chief Justice William Young, who had purchased the collection of the Mechanics’ Library, to administer and to open a library freely to local residents. A Halifax newspaper lent hearty support for ‘public institutions of a literary character’ especially at modest cost. Later, in 1876, the city bought books from the defunct Halifax Library, which the privileged classes had supported for half a century. In the following year, provincial legislation (40 Vic. chap. 34) permitted municipal funding for the Free Library to pay debts and maintenance costs without resort to direct personal fees: "The City Council may payout of the general assessment of the City or may add to the sums authorized to be assessed, such a sum not to exceed one thousand two hundred dollars, as may be necessary for the maintenance of the Citizens' Free Library and defraying the expenses thereof." A committee of city aldermen parsimoniously managed affairs and the library moved a few times before settling into the city hall in 1890. During this time, the library suffered a chronic shortage of funds, a situation that did not improve in the first part of the 20th-century. Nonetheless, the Citizen's Free Library was the first Canadian instance of 1) ongoing municipal tax support without a specific rate clause that a managing committee could not rely on and  2) municipal administration of a library open to the public without charge at point of access.

In the late Victorian era, commentaries on the rationale for free public libraries serving the general public were becoming commonplace. This evolution in thinking combined with legislative standards, enhanced physical library access, and claims that libraries advanced literacy, educational attainment, and societal progress, reinforced support for libraries. In a more prosperous and educated nation, with wealthier business leaders, an increasingly literate populace, a growing middle-class interested in cultural uplift, and civic-minded leaders, the formation of libraries became a cause--a movement--that attracted promoters and followers. Given the disparate state of local government across the new Dominion, a variety of options emerged after Confederation in 1867 for alternative methods of governance and private-public financial support for libraries open to the public without charge to users

Further Reading

Moodey, Edgar C. The Fraser-Hickson Library: An Informal History. London: Clive Bingley, 1977 at the Internet Archive

Hanson, Elizabeth. “Books for the People: The Fraser Institute, 1885-1900.” Épilogue : Canadian Bulletin for the History of Books, Libraries, and Archives 11, no. 2 (1996): 1–10

Montreal Free Library. Analytical and Descriptive Catalogue of the Montreal Free Library. 3rd ed. Montreal: Montreal Free Library, Library Hall, 146 Bleury Street, 1895 at the Internet Archive.

Lamonde, Yvan. “Un aspect inconnu du débat autour de la bibliothèque publique à Montréal: la Montreal Free Library (1889- ).” Les Cahiers des Dix, no. 57 (2003): 263–71. https://doi.org/10.7202/1008108ar.

Rotherham, G.A. The History of the Pettes Memorial Library Knowlton, Quebec, 1894-1983; The Oldest Free Public Library in the Province of Quebec. Knowlton, Québec: Privately Printed, 1983.

Free Public Library (Yarmouth, N.S.), ed. Catalogue, Free Public Library of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia: Established 1872. Saint John, N.B.: J. & A. McMillan, 1872.