D’obscurantisme et de Lumières: La Bibliothèque Publique au Québec by François Séguin (2016)

D’obscurantisme et de Lumières: La Bibliothèque Publique au Québec, des Origines au 21e Siècle by François Séguin. Montréal: Éditions Hurtubise (Cahiers du Québec, no. 168), 2016.

The presence of libraries in Quebec stretches back almost four centuries; their history is complex and plentiful. Now, François Séguin has composed a comprehensive and noteworthy history of libraries used by the public on various terms from the 18th to the 21st century. The author worked for many years in Montreal’s public libraries and has witnessed firsthand the developments over the last forty years. As a historical work, the focus is primarily on the era before 1950; the progress made after the Quiet Revolution is dealt with more briefly. The title reveals the fundamental theme of enlightened progress impeded by conservative elements opposed to the democratization of library access to public reading and knowledge. The author explores why predominantly French-speaking Quebec has undergone an ideological/political library struggle that was not present in other Canadian regions. Yet, there are similarities with English-speaking counterparts: like other North American library developments, the manifestations of the “public library” in Quebec has passed through periods of private, semi-private, and tax-supported services that ranged from the exclusionary use of shareholder/subscribers to municipal entities usually free to local/regional residents. It is this eventful passage that will fascinate many readers.

A summary of the book’s twelve chapters must, of course, not do justice to the depth of Séguin’s scholarship and his ability to provide an appealing narrative based on the history of individual libraries. An introductory chapter briefly outlines private and institutional libraries in New France before the British conquest in 1760. The establishment in 1632 of the Bibliothèque du Collège des Jésuites was a significant highlight of the French regime, but it was not for public use. The concept of public use and literacy growth was demonstrated by the establishment of small subscription libraries, commercial lending libraries, reading rooms, newsrooms, and mechanics’ institutes (instituts d’artisans) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The appeal of these organizations to different clienteles is outlined in the following three chapters, 2 to 4. These libraries were utilized mainly by urban elites, professionals, and people engaged in business. Before the province of Lower Canada was united with Upper Canada to form one British colony in 1841, the major points of interest were:
1764 — Germain Langlois forms a commercial circulating library at Quebec;
1779 — British Governor Haldimand founds the bilingual Bibliothèque de Québec/The Quebec Library;
1828 — The establishment of Mechanics’ Institute of Montreal (now the Atwater Library).

At this point, 1841-42, an extraordinary French visitor from the United States, Alexandre Vattemare, an exponent of free public libraries and the universal distribution of reading through exchanges of books, arrived (chapter 5). In Montreal and Quebec, he proposed the union of local societies into one institute that would form a library, museum, and exhibition halls bolstered by his exchange plan. Séguin devotes an entire chapter to his efforts which did not materialize but ultimately led to the formation of the Institut Canadien in 1844 in Montreal. The intellectual ferment of the early 1840s also stimulated a response from conservatives anxious to block liberal, secular ideas that might threaten the conservative elite and the Catholic Church’s authority. Two chapters (6 and 7) explain the problems encountered by the Institutes Canadiennes in Montreal and Quebec and the development of the parish library (bibliothèque paroissiale) by Catholic authorities. For a century to come, the parish libraries were open for readers, but their organizers placed priority on a rigid system of morality that taught acceptance and passivity in social and political matters. Orthodoxy was more important than the liberal sponsorship of public lectures, debates, and circulating collections that the institutes promoted. The opening of the “Œuvre des Bons Livres” in Montreal by the Sulpician Order in 1842 signalled decades of conflict between the two philosophies while the church succeeded in establishing its hegemony over public reading and defeating the philosophy of the two institutes. The Catholic hierarchy was determined to stiffle the influence of “bad books” by providing “good” ones.

After Confederation in 1867, the Sulpicians began to play an important role in championing publicly authorized reading (chapter 8), notwithstanding the proclamation of an 1890 provincial Act (seldom used) that authorized municipal corporations to maintain public libraries. When Montreal’s civic authorities failed to secure funding from Andrew Carnegie to establish a public library, the Sulpicians founded the famous Bibliothèque Saint-Sulpice for the public and scholars. Eventually, in 1967, its collections became part of the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec and later, after 2002, the provincial government integrated its resources with the Grande Bibliothèque, one of the busiest public libraries in Canada. The formation of the “GB” owed much to the sponsorship of Lucien Bouchard, the leader of the Premier of Quebec between 1996-2001. This chapter of D’obscurantisme et de Lumières underscores the author’s general theme and how social and political elements impact public library development.

The Saint-Suplice Library was a remarkable beaux-arts style building, but it was followed shortly afterwards by an equally imposing edifice in the same architectural style, the Bibliothèque municipale de Montréal, which opened in 1917. By the turn of the twentieth century, there were gradual social, economic, and political forces underway that would eventually undermine the dominance of the parish library in local communities as well as the authority of the clergy in determining collection building. English-speaking minorities, especially in major urban centres and the Eastern Townships, evoked the rhetoric of the Anglo-American public library movement, which embraced municipal control and free access at the entry point for public libraries. Séguin charts the course of this inexorable movement in three chapters, 9 to 11. In Montreal, the Fraser Institute, Quebec’s first free library for the public, opened in 1885, followed by anglophone public libraries in Sherbrooke, Knowlton, and Haskell. Westmount opened another free library in 1899. Even a small francophone municipality, Sainte-Cunégonde, founded a free library immediately before Montreal annexed it in 1905. However, Montreal’s municipal public library on Sherbrooke Street grew slowly because financial resources from the city for collections and staffing were in short supply during its first half-century of existence. Children’s work and a film service were not introduced until a quarter-century after the library opened. After the Second World War, the forces of urbanization, secularization, and the unique national identity of Quebec began to change the province’s political culture and introduced a new important player in public library development--the provincial government.

The book’s final chapter (11) deals with the growth of public libraries after 1959 when the province passed a modest provincial law for public libraries authorizing municipal establishment and control of library services. Regional libraries were planned and formed, professional staffing was encouraged, improved revenues from local government were secured, new branch libraries opened, and new library associations formed that emphasized social issues, such as intellectual freedom. In the early 1980s, Denis Vaugeois, the Minister of Cultural Affairs, emphasized library development with a five-year development plan that improved infrastructure and services substantially. Yet, when the province rescinded the outdated 1959 library legislation, no new specific library act was enacted. Instead, the province moved to establish the Grande Bibliotheque in Montreal, an outstanding circulating and reference library for all Québécois. However, lacking a general law, basic principles, especially free access to resources, remains a legacy of flawed, incremental plans . The current general legislation, one concerning the Ministry of Culture and Communications, has governed public libraries since 1992. Séguin entitles his chapter on the twentieth century “un laborieux cheminement,” an appropriate designation.

D’obscurantisme et de Lumières is a rich narrative firmly focused on the institutional development of libraries and their public value in terms of access to books, the intellectual or recreational content of collections, and a broad range of formats that have challenged the dominance of print after the first decades of the 20th century and the popularity of radio. Séguin uses many documentary sources to illustrate his chapters: quotes from bishops, politicians, and librarians; newspapers such as Le Devoir; personal correspondence; municipal debates; government reports; and, of course, library reports. Influential American practices, such as the Dewey Decimal Classification and the evolution of library science education in degree-granting universities, are evident. But several decisive post-1950 changes are not in evidence. There is little in the book about societal changes, for example, the transformation to electronic-virtual-digital libraries, the “Information Highway” of the 1990s, gender roles (especially the predominance of males in administration), the image of the library or librarians in films or television that reflected societal views, or the effects of library automation and efforts to network libraries for collective usage. Perhaps a few in-depth case studies of major libraries outside Montreal might have been used to illustrate library progress. For example: more emphasis on how the Institut Canadien de Québec, which initially accepted the church’s authority on morality and orthodoxy, then evolved in a singular way into Quebec City’s public library after municipal control in 1887; or, how the regionalization of rural library service proceeded after 1960. The use of informative sidebars on Montreal’s two library schools, influential librarians (e.g., Ægidius Fauteux), children’s libraries, or library associations such as ASTED or the l'Association des bibliothécaires du Québec/Quebec Library Association could advance our knowledge of library progress.

However, these observations in no way diminish the significance of D’obscurantisme et de Lumières as it stands. François Séguin has made a valuable contribution to Canadian library history and allows his readership to understand better the cultural forces that determined library development and the course of librarianship in Quebec. The issues I pose simply suggest that a second book by the author employing various contemporary themes would be equally helpful for those eager to know more about Quebec’s remarkable library history.

Two Fraser Valley films: The Fraser Valley Public Library (c. 1932) and The Library on Wheels (1945)

Fraser Valley Public Library, 16 mm., b & w., 12 minutes, c. 1932. British Columbia Public Library Commission. Photographed and produced by H. Norman Lidster.

The Library on Wheels, 16 mm., b & w, 14 minutes, 1945. National Film Board of Canada. Produced by Gudrun Parker and directed by Bill MacDonald.

The use of 16 mm. films for the promotion of Canadian library services began in earnest with Hugh Norman Lidster during the Great Depression. He was a practicing lawyer, a councillor, and a library board member in New Westminster, BC. In 1929, Lidster was appointed to the British Columbia Public Library Commission, a position to which he made many contributions until his retirement in 1966. In addition to his local and provincial contributions, he was active on the national level and received an Award of Merit from the Canadian Library Trustees’ Association in 1962. Lidster became an avid “home movie” enthusiast in the twenties and bought his first movie camera in 1930. Within a few years, he began to document local events and to promote the new Fraser Valley library regional demonstration (FVRL) funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York from 1930-34. At some point, likely in 1932, Lidster decided to film the library’s new book van on its travels. Fortunately, his work has been preserved; consequently, we can view many of this region’s early community libraries, deposit stations, schools, its rural landscape and mountains, gravel roads, and even the old Agassiz-Rosedale ferry, which was replaced by a bridge in 1956.
 
Lidster’s film is essentially a promotional film to showcase the Carnegie demonstration. It shows library service in the Fraser Valley and follows the book van on its routes from community to community. The film depicts various aspects of the library service and perhaps shows a brief closeup of the energetic director-librarian, Helen Gordon Stewart, at the outset. For today’s viewers, the smaller Canadian communities of the Fraser in the early 1930s appear by 21st century standards to be underdeveloped in terms of technology and economics. Even a decade and a half later, when the Library on Wheels was produced, this same impression prevails. Still, we must consider that Canada was less urbanized at this time: the valley’s principal towns were Abbotsford and Chilliwack, each with about 1,000 population or less. Forestry and farming were major sectors in a resource-based economy. Canada’s economy was growing on an international basis, and its gross domestic product ranked with countries such as Argentina, Poland, and Spain. Postwar economic growth in commercial industry, trade, services, and tourism would, of course, introduce many changes. Today the FVRL serves about 700,000 people.

Fraser Valley book van exiting ferry, ca 1932

 

Serving the rural population in BC was a key goal of the Provincial Public Library Commission Lidster served on. An important BC survey conducted in 1927 recommended that larger administrative library districts based on cooperation between municipalities and school districts would best serve rural communities that could not afford to fund local libraries for improving standards. Fortunately, the Carnegie Corporation of New York awarded a grant of $100,000 to operate a multi-year library project, which commenced in 1930. A notable feature of this project was its book van that traversed an area of approximately 1,000 square miles. The van made regular stops at small community association libraries, filling stations, grocery stores, and country corners. At each stop, it displayed books on its exterior covered shelves for people, young and old, to browse.

 
The experiment in regional library service proved to be quite successful. At its conclusion each community voted whether to continue the regional library with local taxes. Twenty municipalities agreed to do so, and in autumn 1934, a union library was formally established at a ceremony held in Chilliwack. The provincial government provided additional funding to encourage growth.

Eager readers at a book stop, Library on Wheels, 1945

 

The FVRL was a successful model. Two more regional libraries were formed in BC, one on Vancouver Island and another in the Okanagan Valley, before Gudrun Parker, a Winnipeg born film producer who began her career with the National Film Board (NFB) during the Second World War, teamed up with the NFB director Bill MacDonald. He was a talented writer with a particular interest in conservation and outdoor sports, especially fishing. Together, they made an enjoyable reprise of the book van’s travels in the Fraser throughout four weeks in 1944. The NFB crew interacted with many residents during filming. Later, MacDonald recounted: “They took us into their confidence and they told us what they thought of the library and showed us the books they liked to read.” With sound, of course, the Library on Wheels is entertaining because it is also professionally edited. Parker, who eventually would receive the Order of Canada for her body of work in 2005, credited one source of inspiration as Richard Crouch, the chief librarian of London, Ont. Crouch travelled across Canada on a Carnegie grant administered by the Canadian Library Council during the war. He was noted for his advocacy for the role of the “library in the community.” Two years later, in 1947, Parker and Crouch collaborated again, this time to produce the NFB short film, New Chapters, which documented the London library’s cultural and leisure activities in the Forest City. The later film received less promotion and was eclipsed in popularity by yet another bookmobile film of the same year, The Books Drive On, which highlighted libraries and communities in the Ontario county of Huron.

The Library on Wheels proved to be an influential asset for library promoters after WWII. Proponents of regional libraries in the west, especially in Saskatchewan, used the film to establish better rural services linked by newer bookmobiles rather than truck vans. Today, both films still resonate with the spirit of our open country and Canadians’ love of books.

Norman Lidster’s film can be viewed on YouTube here.

 

Watch the NFB’s Library on Wheels on YouTube here (part 1) and here (part 2).

ONTARIO'S LANDMARK PUBLIC LIBRARIES ACT, 1920

A century ago, in June 1920, the Farmer-Labour government in Ontario introduced a new public libraries act, mostly through the work of the Education Department's provincial library Inspector, William O. Carson. He had been London's chief librarian for a decade before moving to Toronto in 1916 to undertake the task of vitalizing Ontario's libraries during the difficult years of the First World War. The contemporary act he inherited dated back as far as 1882, with major revisions issued in 1895 and 1909. But, with the appearance of Carnegie buildings (125 in Ontario), better training for library assistants and librarians, and far different economic conditions facing municipalities after four decades of population growth, the provisions of the older act (which had at one time included mechanics' institutes) no longer suited a province that had suffered rural depopulation and was becoming increasingly urbanized after the 1911 census.

Carson spent his first few years in the small library office of the Education Department at Queen's Park studying the province's public libraries, the free ones with mandatory library tax rates and the association-membership ones that depended on fundraising for their operations. By early 1920, an entirely new act with revisions to older sections was ready to be introduced into the legislative process for three readings. The new law came into effect on June 4th, 1920, after a relatively easy passage through the Ontario legislature. No less than George Locke, Toronto's energetic chief librarian, pronounced that the new act was the greatest step forward in public library development on the continent. Mary J.L. Black was also enthusiastic, writing that the act "may well be considered as the most progressive and practical Library Act that has ever appeared in any statue book, the world over."

The new act was indeed praiseworthy, but not perfect; it served Ontario's public library community well until it was replaced by an entirely new act in 1966. The prominent feature of the new act was its provision for local financing of free public libraries. Previously, library boards had relied on a mandatory minimum municipal levy of one half-mill on the assessed valuation of property (real or personal) in their communities.  Of course, municipalities varied in population, local assessments differed as did tax rates, and many local councils considered the half-mill to be a maximum rather than a minimum. Consequently, Carson introduced a mandatory annual minimum fifty cents per capita levy for municipalities, police villages, and school sections where free libraries existed. The rationale: libraries served people, not property! Municipal councils were also authorized to increase the "public library rate" by majority votes (a seldom used clause as it turned out).

The new act adhered to the concept of enabling municipal based library service. Following the successful vote of eligible electors, a board could be established; these boards, usually composed of nine members in cities, were governed by appointed members and the appointing powers were divided among school and municipal authorities to ensure the semi-independence of each board. For rural library development, the province continued the long-standing tradition, dating back to 1851, of allowing the formation of association (membership) libraries that elected boards of five to ten members from its membership each year. Association libraries were not eligible for the minimum fifty cents per capita rate and had to subsist on members' fees and fundraising events for their operations. Often, Carson's departmental travelling library sections supplied associations with small boxes of books as supplemental reading for their membership.

For its role in library development, Ontario, through its Department of Education, the act authorized provisions for the minister (an office usually held by the sitting Premier) to pay grants to public libraries to a typical maximum of $250.  These provisions encouraged local growth on a "self-help" basis:

1) city branches became eligible for grants on the same basis as main libraries, a stipulation that Toronto enthusiastically endorsed;

2) legislative regulations provided for a grant of fifty percent on book purchases up to $400 and fifty percent on periodicals and newspapers not to exceed $100;

3) a grant of $10 for a reading room open a certain number of hours a week;

4) a few special grants were set aside for small libraries and reading room service.

Carson was also able to convince the government to empower the minister of education to encourage additional services in the interest of public libraries, notably authority to maintain a library school and library institutes. Carson had lengthened the time for library education and training using the Toronto Public Library as a practice facility. Library institutes were shorter workshop sessions aimed at improving the trustees' knowledge about modern library development. The minister also was given the right to pass regulations governing the qualifications of librarians and assistants. Carson, and other leading Ontario librarians, such as George Locke and Mary J.L. Black, considered the librarian and staff to be essential to the success of library service.

For many years, Ontario's library law was cited as a model for other provincial jurisdictions. The 1933 Carnegie sponsored report, Libraries in Canada, noted it was the most complete library act in Canada and could be used as a guide. However, Ontario's act had not adequately dealt with the problem of the small rural library. Union boards could be formed, but this section of the act was seldom used. The commissioners who reported in 1933 singled out Ontario's problem and pointed to the essential provisions of a "good" library act:

1) a statement of purpose for the public library;

2) a central supervising and "energizing" agency;

3) a representative and responsible local management;

4) a sure and adequate income.

Further, the three Carnegie commissioners suggested a statutory Library Commission (like the existing one in British Columbia) would strengthen the hand of the Department's library inspectorate. County and regional library amendments were also necessary to ensure cooperative efforts in rural areas. A Commission, of course, had been rejected by Ontario's government as far back as 1902. County library cooperative legislation was introduced in 1947, regional co-operative could be formed after 1957, and, eventually, county libraries were authorized in 1959. These amendments were the most significant changes to the 1920 Act over the course of forty-five years.

When the new Act of 1966 came into effect, it eliminated some prominent vestiges of the past that were features of the 1920 Act: the need for local plebiscites to establish libraries, the requirement to be a British subject, the voluntary Library Association form of governance, and the minimum per capita library rate of 1920. From the perspective of a century, the 1920 Act, although hailed at the time as a modern advancement, fell short in vital areas. From the very first, a Michigan librarian familiar with Canadian and American conditions, Samuel Ranke, estimated that $1.00 per capita would be more a more suitable rate. The new act lacked provisions to permit, or encourage, cooperative services between library boards, except for the union board clause. Trustees, for the most part, need not look beyond their community. Library operations in smaller places frequently were in the hands of self-trained local appointments because there was no requirement to hire trained personnel. Boards assumed a "hands-on approach" and made decisions about book selection and finances. Reappointment of trustees, rather than an infusion of new blood, was standard practice.

In many respects, the 1920 Act consolidated previous ideas about how library service should develop within Ontario's municipal structure, which dated to 1849. But future progress in Ontario would depend on ideas and attitudes quite unlike the ones which characterized the successes of the public library movement from 1880-1920. By 1950, it was evident changes would be necessary and new library amendments began to appear with regularity. Indeed, Ontario's municipal framework began to undergo similar reviews to accommodate changing demographics and social issues.

The full text of the act is available on the Internet Archive.

Les bibliothèques canadiennes, 1604-1960 by Antonio Drolet (1965)

Les bibliothèques canadiennes, 1604-1960 by Antonio Drolet. Ottawa: Le Cercle du Livre de France, 1965. 234 p., tables.

Antonio Drolet, n.d.

Antonio Drolet was born in Québec City on July 31, 1904, and studied at the Petit Séminaire de Québec where many young Catholic clerics were educated. He earned his BA at Université Laval in 1925. Eventually,  he chose a career outside religious studies: he became an academic librarian at Laval. He also performed duties as a Secretary to the respected literary critic and rector of Laval, Camille Roy. Later, he organized and directed work at the library in the Faculty of Medicine at Sainte-Foy from 1955-1961. In 1964, Drolet became chief librarian at the Archives of Québec. During his career, he published important works, notably Bibliographie du roman canadien-français 1900–1950 in 1955 and Les Bibliothèques canadiennes 1604–1960 in 1965 along with many scholarly articles on libraries, especially in the vicinity of Quebec City (see below). Drolet died on June 30, 1970.

Antonio Drolet's history of Canadian libraries was a groundbreaking work in Canadian library historiography and owed much to his knowledge of Canadian bibliography and his own scholarly work on libraries and book collections in the province of Quebec. In attempting to encompass the development of our nation's libraries from the arrival of French explorers to the postwar period after 1945, the author was examining an area of research that was, for the most part, a patchwork of regional histories and unsynthesized commentaries. Drolet was largely successful in striving to weld these pieces together in a sweeping historical survey of Canadian library development. More than half a century later, some parts may seem dated or insubstantial due to subsequent research, nevertheless, Les Bibliothèques canadiennes is still a reliable, concise account which blends Drolet's narrative and analysis, notably his portrayal of the considerable influence of the clergy in Quebec's public library development. Drolet was steadfast in his account of the historical ascendancy of public services at a time when Quebec's politics and culture in the 1960s -- the Quiet Revolution -- was fundamentally changing life in Quebec. Drolet seems to be deeply aware of this trend and, as a result, his general work remains an important starting point in historical inquiry, especially for the evolution of libraries in Quebec.

Drolet chose to divide Canada's library chronology into three parts, from (1) the early libraries in the French colony established by Samuel Champlain to the British military victories in the Seven Years' War at Québec City and Montréal (1604-1760), (2) the British colonial period to Confederation, to (3) the entire post-Confederation period (1867-1960) of developing nationhood. These dates mirror the earlier dominance of political history in Canada's past established by Canadian historians in the first part of the 20th century and the ideas that emerged from its colonial experience and the aftermath of Confederation. Of course, Drolet composed his work before the rise of new social history in Canadian universities that involved a variety of studies on urbanism, ethnicity, labour, demographics, regional or societal structures, and more complex patterns of chronology. It was sometimes called "history from below" or "history with the politics left out." This new history used different viewpoints and source materials and did not focus on attempts at a national synthesis. Drolet was composing his narrative at a time when French-language historians at two major universities, Laval and Montreal, were beginning to re-interpret Quebec's history using professional standards to investigate the province's social and cultural development beyond the traditional nationalist emphasis on the survival of francophone culture in a North American setting. Les Bibliothèques canadiennes displays an interest in print culture and book history, areas of study in their own right in relation to the field French-Canadian library history. Drolet's successors who have made authoritative contributions to Quebec's library history, such as Yvan Lamonde, Gilles Gallichan, or Marcel Lajeunesse -- have followed in this tradition of interrelating library history with printing and publishing, the history of books, literacy, reading, and intellectual development. These works reflect the new cultural historiography that became more influential on both sides of the Atlantic in the 1980s, many years after Drolet's publication appeared.

However, Drolet was also writing at a time when institutional and administrative concerns in library history -- the growth of collections, the spread of various types of libraries, or the tenure of chief administrators -- dominated local narratives, especially in American and Canadian English-speaking accounts. Drolet chose to focus on types of libraries and their development -- a typical institutional approach that is less favoured by historians now. His contemporaries writing library history echoed the liberal-democratic premise of practicing librarians and trustees who projected the idea of public libraries financed by municipalities and administered by trustees as a powerful force for literacy and democracy. To some extent, Drolet was not subject to this overarching Anglo-American-Canadian experience because he specialized in the course of Quebec's library development which had resisted this thinking. As he notes, even in 1930 a Liberal Premier of Quebec, Louis-Alexandre Taschereau, could state that the content of public libraries posed some threat, especially to youth (p. 173-74). However, while he adhered to the cultural-religious aspects of Quebec's library history, Drolet necessarily was concocting a national interpretation of the historical record emphasizing facts and events that often were institutional, administrative, and political in focus, thus giving weight to the progress of institutional growth.

In his first time frame, Drolet examines the libraries of New France, particularly private libraries of the colonial elite and Catholic religious institutions. The vast majority of private collections were not large and, as he notes, were often devoted to religious works, as were the libraries in churches and seminaries. He covers the entire period as one -- the reader does not get a sense of the growth of libraries in the French regime, perhaps because they were small and a "book culture" with contemporary printing presses and book stores was lacking. For institutional libraries, Drolet drew on his own published work, particularly the Séminaire de Québec (see below) which is still cited by scholars. The most important library in the French colony was the library of the Collège des Jésuites at Québec City which Drolet had published an extensive article on in 1961 (see below). He calculates that there were about 20,000 volumes in about 50 personal collections in New France (p. 25) with prominent French writers, Pascal, Descartes, and Montaigne available to readers (p. 45). He concludes his section on mostly private collections by noting the appearance of libraries for the public in North America, a trend the French colony had not experienced.

The central part of Les Bibliothèques canadiennes (1760-1867) is more successful in providing details that offer a sense of colonial library development including the background of difficulties inherent in Canada's burgeoning book trade, especially in Quebec. Commercial circulating libraries, subscription libraries (which Drolet terms as public, p. 88, because they did not belong to a person and attracted a limited clientele), English language mechanics' institutes and their French counterpart instituts d’artisans, school libraries, parliamentary libraries, professional libraries, public libraries of different types, parish libraries, college and university libraries begin to appear. Drolet examines the size of collections, for example, the Bibliothèque de Québec founded in 1779. The author's interest in parish libraries encouraged by the Catholic Church after 1840 stems from his earlier research (see below) and continues his observations on the importance of religion on library development in his home province. He finds the clergy repeatedly thwarting the development of local or municipal public libraries by acting as a conservative force to actively control social and cultural institutions, especially the foundation of libraries for the public in a general sense ("bibliothèques populaires" p. 135). In two notable cases, the visit of Alexandre Vattemare in 1840-41 which resulted in the founding of the controversial L’Institut canadien de Montréal (1844-80) and the refusal to accept money from Andrew Carnegie's program to build free public library buildings at the beginning of the 20th century, the Catholic ultramontane philosophy prevailed. The development of school libraries under Egerton Ryerson and Jean-Baptiste Meilleur is also highlighted. To illustrate the growth of libraries, there is a chronological table (p. 151-54) of the foundation of many Canadian libraries during this period, perhaps a realization on the author's part that a substantial descriptive history of all library development over one hundred years was not feasible in the early 1960s. Drolet was touching the surface of library history not burrowing deeper to examine the complexities of library formation, investigating the contribution of persons (politicians, trustees, librarians), or identifying general trends or geographic differences that influenced library growth.

In his final section, Drolet moves to a national stage beyond Quebec and Ontario and covers important libraries in ten Canadian provinces. Discussion is necessarily compressed, but it engages the reader with useful information and displays the author's extensive learning and dedication to details. At the same time, the author introduces government, business, school, and academic libraries. Generally, the primacy of private and public library history lessens and types of libraries multiply. In this time frame, as might be expected because he was writing before the influence of new social and cultural history approaches, Drolet remains fixed on an institutional focus, even with library education and the development of librarianship (p. 203-04). As the formation of provincial and national library associations comes into play, he notes the bi-cultural nature of Canadian librarianship: the formation of the Canadian Library Association (still bilingual at the time of Drolet's publication) and L'Association canadienne des bibliothécaires de langue française shortly after the Second World War. There is little opportunity to consider the societal impact of libraries, although the author indicates Quebec's decision to follow the example of Canadian-American public library development in other provinces with the formation of a provincial public library law in 1959.

Les Bibliothèques canadiennes has influenced Quebec authors in the past half-century, in part because Drolet was in tune with the changes of the Quiet Revolution and the need to secularize and reinterpret library history in his home province. Conversely, Drolet's work is seldom cited in English-language publications even though it could easily serve as an introductory handbook. A variety of reasons likely account for this neglect beyond the obvious obstacle of language and its brevity. The book's all-encompassing scope provided brief information on various types of libraries or librarians; its focus on private libraries, book collectors, and reading in Quebec did not attract researchers outside the province; some of its contents gradually became dated or known through other works; some important aspects, such as regional libraries, are scarcely mentioned; and, of course, it is now more than half a century past its original publication. Nevertheless, Drolet's history can still reward readers because the author was careful to establish his facts and confident enough to interpret more than three hundred years of Canada's past, an academic project which probably would be attempted by a collegial of effort in 2020.

Drolet's Bibliothèques canadiennes is available for readers at the Internet Archive of books.


Additional works by Drolet:

Antonio Drolet, “La Bibliothèque du Séminaire de Québec et son catalogue de 1782,” Le Canada Français 28, no. 3 (Nov. 1940): 261–266.
Antonio Drolet, “La bibliothèque de l'Université Laval,” La revue de l'Université Laval 7 (1952): 34–41.
Antonio Drolet, “La bibliothèque du Collège des Jésuites,” Revue d’histoire de l’Amérique française 14, no. 4 (mars 1961): 487–544.
Antonio Drolet, “L’Épiscopat canadien et les bibliothèques paroissiales de 1840 à 1900,” vol. 29, Rapport - Société canadienne d’histoire de l’Église catholique (Hull, Québec: Leclerc, 1962), 21–35.

About the author:

Alphéda Robitaille, “Hommage à un historien: Antonio Drolet, 1904–1970,” Archives: Revue de l'Association des Archivistes du Québec 70, no. 2 (juillet-décembre 1970), 32–42. [bibliography]
Charles-Marie Boissonnault, “Antonio Drolet, bibliothécaire et historien,” Proceedings and Transactions and of the Royal Canadian Society, Antonio Drolet, bibliothécaire et historien (1972), 127–134.

Toronto’s Free Library: Facts for the Citizens (1881) by John Taylor

Toronto’s Free Library: Facts for the Citizens by John Taylor. Toronto: n.p., signed 25 October 1881,  4 p., tables.

John Taylor was born in Leek, Staffordshire, England, in 1841. He came to Canada as a teenager with his family when he was fourteen. His early business training was with Taylor Brothers, paper makers, a firm that was at the forefront in an expanding paper industry based on the use of wood pulp. After leaving the firm, John ventured into the commission business with J.L. Morrison. He eventually established his own major factory specializing in the manufacture of soap, John Taylor & Company, on the Don River.

Taylor became a director of the Toronto Mechanics' Institute in the 1870s, showing an interest in the welfare and education of working people. He was treasurer of the Institute in 1880. He was also a member and president of the St. George's Society which sought to assist immigrants and those in need.  He also entered the arena of politics, serving as an alderman and school trustee. By 1881, he was becoming a promoter of a public library in Toronto with the publication of a short booklet, Toronto’s Free Library. Along with John Hallam, Taylor became a leading exponent of free library service for Toronto residents, although their ideas were not entirely in unison despite the Grip illustration caption from March 25, 1882.

Taylor's small tract begins with a statement that Toronto was in need of the intelligence a free library could provide for its future welfare and good government. Taylor, like his friend John Hallam and many others, believed in cultural accessibility and the communication of ideas to society through systematic education. Books and magazines could help explain the organization and processes of government and help explain current issues. Libraries could also provide resources to study social conditions. Already, in the United States and Great Britain, libraries were in operation affording free reading to thousands of people. Taylor offers examples of libraries in America, Britain, France, and Australia to buttress his point and, to counter skeptics, asserts that "it must not be taken for granted that reading for amusement is the sole aim of a rate-supported library." As well, he offers another argument based on his view of democratic political life in North America:

Free libraries are certainty not so numerous in Great Britain as in the United States. Class distinction is much more clearly marked in the Old World than on this side the Atlantic, and that same wave of democracy that has done so much to merge classes and creeds among our neighbours will no doubt in time reach the Dominion without necessarily weakening the loyalty of the people."

Taylor, like his friend Hallam and most Ontarians, was reluctant to disassociate his promotion of libraries from the preservation of the British connection. He was more concerned with a practical scheme for Toronto.

There are two feasible methods of establishing a library from municipal funds. One plan—advanced by my colleague in the Council, Alderman Hallam—is to forestall and fund a portion of the rate so as to erect handsome and suitable buildings at once and fill (or partially fill) them with say 60,000 or 80,000 volumes the first year. The other plan would be to commence on a more moderate scale and spend the money in books, etc., as it is granted. Either way would secure a grand result for any corporation availing itself of the Act. I would advance such an establishment that the maintenance thereof would not exceed $5000 a year for Librarian, Assistants, Caretaker, gas, etc., so that the purchase account for new books, periodicals and newspapers may be as large as possible.

Taylor even suggested a civic museum could be established with the free library and that the cost to a small householder would only be about twenty-five cents a year, the price of one dinner at a farmer's hotel! At civic elections held at the start of the new year, in January 1883, Toronto's ratepayers voted in favour of the ballot question to establish a library thereby authorizing the city council to establish a bylaw for its creation. Like his aldermanic counterpart, John Hallam, does not reference the term "democracy."  He is content to postulate that the library would ultimately contribute to a better-educated citizenry.

Taylor's contribution to the establishment of Toronto's free library was satirized by Grip on December 2nd, 1882. In time, Taylor, and other directors of the Toronto Mechanics' Institute, came to favour a third option, i.e., the transfer of property belonging to the Institute to the municipality for free library purposes according to Ontario's 1882 Free Libraries Act. On 29 March 1883, at a special general meeting, the Institute's directors (which included Taylor) voted to transfer all its property (and liabilities) to the city of Toronto. Later, on 20 June, the transfer deed giving legal effect was executed. The institute formally reopened on 6 March 1884 as Toronto's free library on the corner of Church and Adelaide Streets. John Taylor served as chair of the new Toronto Public Library in 1885 and continued on its Board of Management until January 1900.


John Taylor's short pamphlet is available at Canadiana Online.