Alexander Calhoun defends The Grapes of Wrath in Calgary, 1940

“The problem of obscenity in books is undoubtedly a very thorny one for librarians. Possibly the only confident statement one dare make on the subject is that there has been in the last generation a marked increase of tolerance on the part of the public toward obscenity in literature. In the main, I think, this is a sign of progress.” — Alexander Calhoun, March 16, 1940, Calgary Herald.

    When the Viking Press published John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath in 1939, it was generally greeted with critical acclaim in North America. Steinbeck’s masterful story followed the fictional Joad family’s trek to the promised land of California and their struggles once heartbreaking reality shattered their hopeful vision. The novel quickly reached the top of bestseller lists. Its renown gained Steinbeck a Pulitzer Prize for Novels and a National Book Award for Fiction within a year. The 1940 movie version starring Henry Fonda was equally successful at box offices.

    Canadian customs officials did not prohibit the importation of the novel into Canada. It was legally published and available for sale. But the novel was also greeted by many opponents who felt Steinbeck employed obscene/foul language, described overt sexual affairs, indulged in religious profanity, and sympathized with dangerous socialist/communist ideas. Some libraries in the United States, such as Buffalo, refused to purchase it; there were a few book burning as well. In Toronto, there were complaints from library patrons that The Grapes of Wrath was not available even a year later, in early 1940. The Chief Librarian, Charles Sanderson, told the Toronto Star that it was one of the books that the library would not buy. Higher literary standards—the highbrow culture of exclusion—often prevailed among library selectors and cautious library administrators.

    However, one library director in Canada, Alexander Calhoun at Calgary Public Library, defended Steinbeck’s work and made a case for its selection and retention in libraries. Calhoun had tentatively decided not to order it when the first reviews came out in early 1939. The American Library Association’s review publication, Booklist, had called attention to Steinbeck’s use of “natural language” and recommended the book be read prior to purchase. Later in the year, Booklist published Helen E. Haines’ article “Values of Fiction” which praised Steinbeck’s novel. She was a reputable American library educator whose judgements were noteworthy. Calhoun decided to read the novel; then he placed an order for the Calgary library.

    Faced in early March 1940 with a complaint by a Calgary city alderman, Hedley C. Chauncey, Calhoun explained his rationale in an opinion piece in Calgary Herald: “My own opinion is that it is so significant as a social document that no library worth of the name should be without a copy.”  He said that a few libraries had banned Anthony Adverse by Hervey Allen, although it contained passages of a pornographic nature more shocking than anything in Grapes. He pointed to an American judge’s decision in 1933 to lift the ban on James Joyce’s Ulysses. This important ruling clarified a few matters about what could be judged pornographic:

1939 book cover

(1) what was the author’s intention: to write a pornographic book?
(2) a book should be judged as a whole, not by any of its parts or excerpts;
(3) the standard of reference for obscenity should be for a typical adult, not minors;
(4) “dirty,” realistic language is not necessarily pornographic or obscene when taken in a broader context of the book.

This landmark decision eventually opened the door for the publication of serious works of literature that used coarse language or depicted sexual subjects.

    Calhoun explained that his own judgement was only one part that formed his decision. He asked his staff to read the book, and he also looked into the opinion of Calgary library readers. All eleven staff reported they favoured the book’s retention. Calhoun mentioned there had been no demands from readers to have the book removed from library shelves by its many readers. And he had listened to the NBC Network’s radio talk show, America’s Town Meeting of the Air program, “What should America do for the Joads?” Calgary’s library director, along with millions, had tuned in to hear this program on March 7th. He felt the show likely would lead to further investigation of social problems raised in the book by Steinbeck. He closed his opinion piece by commenting that “no minor will be given the book to read without the clear approval of his parents.” His assessment countered the argument that Grapes posed a threat to taint younger teenage minds. Nonetheless, it was a conservative view. Just a few years later, at the end of WW 2, an Ontario teacher, Mary Campbell at Harbord Collegiate Institute, Toronto, expressed her view at a librarians’ discussion group that, “The Grapes of Wrath is a realistic book for senior students. I recommend it for the validity of period and social situation. The profanity is incidental. We should have confidence in our standards. We shouldn’t consider narrow-minded opinions.”

    The controversy over The Grapes of Wrath raised the issues of censorship and intellectual freedom for public librarians and trustees at a time authoritarian regimes threatened democratic nations. In June 1939, at San Francisco, the American Library Association issued a brief three-point “Library’s Bill of Rights.” It stated libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view. Library selections should not be subject to the influence of race, nationality, or the writers’ political or religious views. Further, library meeting space should be made available to all community groups on equal terms regardless of their beliefs or affiliation. In Canada, the short ALA statement was published in the British Columbia Library Association Bulletin in November 1939 without comment. Indeed, intellectual freedom would remain an subterranean issue in Canadian libraries until the Cold War commenced.

Further Reading:

“Calgary Librarian’s Case for the Joads.” Calgary Herald, Saturday, March 16, 1940, p. 30.

Listen to RadioEchoes.com archive recording of the Town Meeting of the Air panel discussion on the social issues raised by Steinbeck that Calhoun referenced [approx. one hour].

Alexander Calhoun’s biography at Ex Libris Association.

Marshall McLuhan speaks to Ontario librarians about books and reading, 1954–56

Herbert Marshall McLuhan, 1945

By the mid–1950s, prominent speakers had become a fixture at Ontario Library Association (OLA) annual conferences. Such was the case in mid-May 1956 when the OLA met at Oshawa’s new McLaughlin Library, which had opened in 1954. This OLA conference was shortened to two days because the Canadian Library Association would meet at Niagara Falls in June. Nevertheless, four hundred and twenty-five persons registered; it was one of the best attended conferences to date. A notable attraction was an emerging University of Toronto professor at St. Michael’s College, Marshall McLuhan. He addressed delegates about “The Future of the Book” at a luncheon on May 16th at the St. Andrew’s United Church in downtown Oshawa.

McLuhan had found an American firm, Vanguard Press, to publish The Mechanical Bride: Folklore of Industrial Man in 1951. In The Bride, he analyzed popular printed resources (e.g., comic strips or visual images in magazine/newspaper advertisements) as agents of social communication and public persuasion rather than transmitters of content. He theorized that readers typically perceived messaging so casually that they failed to notice how it influenced their thinking about lifestyles and social norms. McLuhan believed the form of communication was a very significant force that shaped public awareness because it merged technology and sexual themes in persuasive way, hence the title of his book. The Bride’s short chapters could be read in any order—a method that allowed McLuhan’s readers to concentrate on one topic or skip to another section, much like dialing a radio to find a good program.

The St. Michael’s college professor spoke to librarians about his interpretations of the effect of movies and radio on books. Now television had become another challenge. These electronic media engaged the public in new, different ways; for example, the outcome of elections was less predictable now. But McLuhan felt the future of the book was assured; in fact, every type of media enriched books. All media, including books, are the means of translating one kind of experience into another. Books were an early stage of the mechanization of the written word. Now, television and radio were adopting an electronic mode of operation or production of words. Books allowed readers, in a linear fashion, to delve deeper into knowledge and presented a greater diversity of subjects. Nonetheless, McLuhan believed the public’s perception of the electronification of information was becoming as important in transmitting knowledge through printed media.

R.H. King Collegiate library, 1954

McLuhan’s message was well received at a time when libraries and educators were grappling with the growth of mass media, primarily television and radio, which reached into homes across the nation. In their own right, libraries were important sources of print medium that conveyed detailed information. Indeed, it was the second time the theorist spoke to Ontario librarians in less than two years. The School and Intermediate Libraries Section of OLA invited him to its meeting at the R.H. King Collegiate Institute in Scarborough on Saturday afternoon October 30th, 1954. Margaret Scott was the head librarian at the R.H. King’s library, which was considered a comfortable, modern setting for students. She would later become an associate professor of school librarianship at the University of Toronto Library School. Scott was an active member of the School and Intermediate Libraries section, which dated back to the 1920s to annual OLA ‘round tables’ of librarians and teachers interested in the reading and use of books by young adults. The OLA had formalized this section in 1935 to represent librarians in secondary schools and public librarians interested in young adult reading. Librarians believed libraries to be places where ‘good’ books could be found to counter the effect of mass-produced ‘bad’ books that teens could purchase at local retailers or exchange among themselves.

“The Hazards of Reading” formed the theme of McLuhan’s afternoon session at R.H. King. Despite the spread of electronic mass media in the 20th century, he remained an advocate for book culture. When he asked, “What is the essential core of Book-Culture that is worth preserving?” he was suggesting that a ‘core library’ could be assembled to preserve and make accessible humankind’s knowledge. An informed personal perspective was necessary to remedy the ill effects of standardized advertising and messaging presented in various mass media. Book reading had an effect quite different from the competing media. He made the interesting observation that students come to the classroom “loaded with facts.” The need was not to supply more facts but to help them articulate what they already knew—to help them orient themselves in the midst of the conflicting cultural media surrounding them. McLuhan emphasized the need to study the impact of the new media of communication on the older book culture. His post-presentation comments raised many interesting points; however, questions had to be cut short before the closing school hour.

McLuhan’s Mechanical Bride did not reach the bestseller lists or sweep through the halls of academia. Nor did libraries undertake to assemble ‘core’ collections to represent humankind’s knowledge for their clientele. Later, especially in the 1960s, McLuhan achieved celebrity status with a series of popular books: his phrase “the medium is the message” became the source for many programs, discussions, and articles. Television was a ‘cool’ medium requiring attentive listeners/viewers. He claimed electronic media were supplanting print culture, that the book as a package might become ‘obsolete’ unless it adapted to the new media. His communication theories often seemed to be at odds with the promotion of library service through books. Many, such as Canada’s National Librarian, W.K. Lamb, refused to believe that the book was obsolete. Yet, McLuhan’s use of this hot-button word pointed more to an outmoded technology rather than decay and non-usage. Public librarians especially wondered whether the media prophet’s proclamation that books were ‘hot’—i.e., there was less engagement by the viewer/reader than ‘cool’ TV—helped promote the community services they were offering. Being regarded as a book provider was not so hot to many librarians who pointed to the importance of other library formats, e.g., films and recordings.

All the same, McLuhan was never a foe of public libraries or print culture. The library was a primary print resource, and librarians were reliable mediators in selecting, organizing, and storing information. In fact, he composed a manuscript with co-author Robert Logan in the late 1970s, which eventually was published in 2016 many years after his untimely death at age 69: Robert K. Logan and Marshall McLuhan, The Future of the Library. Before the virtual or digital library existed, McLuhan hoped libraries would better engage their clientele with new electronic media. His message was hopeful because he believed the book would become an information service rather than a mere package on library shelves. Library resources and the range of services also could change in the same fashion. With the establishment of the ‘digital library’ by the first decades of the 2000s, McLuhan’s optimism about books and libraries expressed many years before beforehand at his two OLA sessions appears well-founded.

Further Reading:

Logan, R., K., McLuhan, M. (2016). The Future of the Library: From Electric Media to Digital Media. New York: Peter Lang.

Neill, Samuel D. “Books and Marshall McLuhan.” Library Quarterly; Information, Community, Polity vol. 41, no. 4 (October 1971): 311–319.

Two Canadian films about libraries on wheels: Roads to Reading and Journey from Zero

Roads to Reading. 16 mm film, colour, sound, 14 minutes, 1958. Produced by the Nova Scotia Film Bureau for the Nova Scotia Provincial Library. Directed by Margaret Perry with Alberta Letts as technical advisor.
Journey from Zero = La Longue Randonnée. 16 mm film, sound, colour, 13 minutes, 1961. National Film Board of Canada, Directed by Roger Blais.

By 1960, regional libraries were fairly well established in Canada. The sight of a bookmobile on Canada’s rural roadways was by now means novel anymore. In Nova Scotia, where regional services had begun in earnest in the late 1940s, there were five regional systems: Cape Breton (headquarters in Sydney), Annapolis Valley, Pictou County (headquarters in New Glasgow), Colchester-East Hants (headquarters in Truro), and the Halifax City Regional Library. In 1952, the province adopted a new library act that provided a comprehensive plan for a centralized direction and regional libraries to cover the entire province financed to the amount of more than 50 percent by the provincial treasury. A Provincial Library Service was established to encourage and assist the formation and operation of new regions. Despite the progress of the 1950s, there were still many areas, e.g., the area surrounding Halifax and Dartmouth, that remained outside regional services. Regions served about half the population of the province through 31 branches, schools, and bookmobiles.

Alberta Letts, the Director of the Provincial Library centred at Halifax, was an energetic leader who was not reluctant to try any measure to promote and form new regions. In concert with the Nova Scotia Film Bureau, a short documentary of how regional services could benefit Nova Scotians was introduced in 1958. It became a beneficial aid at local meetings and indeed gained some prominence across Canada, in part due to the remarkable efforts of two librarians. Alberta Letts was finishing her 1957–58 term as President of the Canadian Library Association, and another regional director at Cape Breton, Ruby Wallace, would assume the presidency of CLA in 1962–63.

Roads to Reading was a short feature designed to offer a glimpse of everyday regional library work. At the outset, viewers see an Annapolis Valley bookmobile stop where people exchange books and pick up popular reading. The bookmobile serves fishing villages and farms alike with 1,500 books. Its services radiate out from a central staging point where books are sorted and selected for distribution. The film gives an overview of all the regional operations including branches at Glace Bay, Tatamagouche, and Reserve Mines where the branch memorializes Father Jimmy Tompkins’ efforts to introduce library services and promote adult education starting in the 1930s. Smaller places, such as the Air Force Station Greenwood, a post office, and even a bank vault, give a sense of community resourcefulness in supplying reading materials for all ages. The city of Halifax was an interesting case that served a single municipality through its well-resourced central library. Even the Legislative Library was part of the network of libraries serving Nova Scotians. The film’s concluding minutes provide a “how to” synopsis about forming a regional system from local committees, municipalities, and the final authorization by the provincial government. “Reading is always in season,” explains the narrator as the bookmobile disappears down a sunny roadway.

Journey from Zero is less didactic and its quality ensured by the NFB production standards. In many ways, this film is a travelogue—a visit to Canada’s northern areas in British Columbia where books and reading are a welcome commodity to miners, forest workers, aboriginals, military personnel, seasonal tourists, and maintenance workers living along the Alaska Highway. JFZ’s director, Roger Blais, was an experienced NFB filmmaker who would later become the head of audiovisual production for Expo 67. The film begins at the Dawson Creek library, which is mile zero. Here a small book van is stocked with books for delivery to remote communities. These books are a free service from the British Columbia Library Commission operating from the Peace River Co-operative Library formed in 1952. Over the course of two weeks, the journey will take the van about 900 miles north as far as Whitehorse.

The librarian, Howard Overend, wrote about his experience in his book published in 2001, The Book Guy: A Librarian in the Peace: “The acting for Journey from Zero was minimal and without speaking parts. There was to be, Roger said, a voice-over in the film so all we had to do was to simulate our usual mobile library work: driving, carrying in the books, meeting the teachers and pupils, showing books to community librarians and so on.” The first stop came at mile 295—a military fire hall station in Muskwa, a now decommissioned armed forces garrison. Then on to Fort Nelson to a library located in a motel office manned by a volunteer. At mile 392, the small van reached Summit Lake, the highest point on the Alaska Highway, where a school housed a small collection of books. At the Liard River, miles 496, the van takes a short side trip for a swim in the hot springs, offering a welcome relief from the tedium of driving and traversing narrow roadways. Then on to Cassiar, a small settlement which is today a ghost town due to closure of an asbestos mine, and finally, Atlin, a small community created during the gold rush era. At this point, the van moves into the Yukon to visit Whitehorse, where a proposed regional library system was in development. The van has travelled about 900 miles and it is time to return home. The film closes with the idea that the world of literature is available to the world of mountains and forests in the farthest reaches of British Columbia, the Peace and Northern Rockies districts.

During the 1960s, these two films publicized the idea of bringing books to people through organized regional services. Alberta Letts went on to form five new regional library systems in Nova Scotia during the 1960s. Unfortunately, she died in a car accident in 1973. Howard Overend continued in the Peace district until the early 1970s until he left to become director of the Fraser Valley Regional Library and for a short time the Territorial Director for Yukon in the early 1980s. He passed away in 2017. Roger Blais was named an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000.

 Roads to Reading can be viewed on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBhmrRFG7CY

Journey from Zero can be viewed at the National Film Board site: https://www.nfb.ca/film/journey-from-zero/

Howard Overend’s personal account is in The Book Guy (Victoria, B.C: TouchWood Editions, 2001), pp. 202–207.

 

The American Library Association’s neglected Canadian conference in Vancouver, 1949

Canadian library histories often recount six American Library Association’s conferences in Canada: Ottawa (1912), Toronto (1927 and 2003), and Montreal (1900, 1934, and 1960). But there is rare mention of another ALA annual meeting held in Vancouver on the University of British Columbia campus from August 22–25 in 1949. It was the only the second ALA meeting on the Pacific west coast following the first in Seattle in 1925. However, this convention was not ALA’s usual full-scale conference; instead, it was the first of seven regional ones which the Association experimented with during 1949 to determine their effectiveness. Normally, ALA would register about 3,000 members at its single annual meeting each year. By comparison, there were about 750 in attendance in Vancouver. This number was boosted by the fact that the Pacific Northwest Library Association celebrated its 40th anniversary in Vancouver along with members from western state associations, such as California. A few Canadians, mostly members of the British Columbia Library Association, also were in attendance. By comparison, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) was attracting about 250–500 people to its annual meetings in the late 1940s. The ALA meetings in Toronto in 1927 and Montreal in 1934 had registered almost 2,000 attendees.

The conference featured a number of important ALA official events and speeches. The newly elected officers for ALA in 1949–50 were introduced. The new President was Milton Lord, the director of the Boston Public Library. He would return to Canada to make an address about library community relations in an international setting at the Canadian Library Association’s 1950 meeting in Montreal. Clarence R. Graham, librarian of the Louisville Free Public Library became the first Vice-President. In a few years, he would break barriers by making Louisville the first public library in the American southern states to open its main library to Black Americans. A Canadian, Mary E. Silverthorn, from the University of Toronto Library School, was elected to ALA’s Council for the term 1949–53.

But the outgoing President, Errett W. McDiarmid, the director of the University of Minnesota library and the university’s library instruction programs, made the most news. He had spoken earlier in June at the Canadian Library Association’s annual conference (held in Winnipeg) on subjective library standards. One thread of his Vancouver presidential address attempted to counter the growing threat of book censorship in libraries and the suppression of  “un-American” ideas and alleged Communist infiltration. He called on delegates to protect the democratic right to free access information in libraries, to promote free speech, and to support the societal duty of professionals to oppose censorship. The role of librarians and libraries in defending intellectual freedom would increasingly concern ALA members after the strengthened Library Bill of Rights in 1948. In Canada, Vancouver’s library director, Edgar Robinson, believed that adults should be able to make their decisions about reading. He did not ban books: he held a few controversial ones on a restricted basis for individuals to request if they chose.  Ultimately, Robinson felt book bans were counter-productive. However, it would be many years before the majority of Canadian library associations formally adopted statements of intellectual freedom in the mid-1960s. Even in the United States, the Library of Bill of Rights continued to have many opponents and would be revised on several occasions into the 21st century. More serious was the allegation that a library employee might have communist or socialist leanings—dismissal often followed brief, in-camera reviews such as the contentious John Marshall case at Victoria Public Library in 1954 (almost half a century later the library board would offer Marshall an apology for his mistreatment).

For the most part, the conference was an amiable, businesslike affair. Delegates discussed part of an important postwar Fourth Activities Committee report that recommended organizational changes in ALA’s structure supported by many members. However, California delegates rejected the notion that state associations should become state chapters of ALA. They preferred the status quo of independence and cooperation between states and the ALA. Delegates also had an opportunity to combine business with pleasure. A day was set aside for an enjoyable “mystery cruise” up the scenic British Columbia coastline on the S.S. Lady Alexandra, followed by an evening banquet at the Hotel Vancouver.

Another day was set aside for discussions on the partially completed ALA study headed by Robert D. Leigh, The Public Library Inquiry. The Inquiry would continue until 1952. Bernard Berelson, the author of the 1949 Inquiry volume, The Library’s Public, said his research confirmed that the library reached only a minority of the population, the better educated. Alice Bryan, who was researching the profiles of public librarians, reported her ongoing research that focused on personality concepts, such as leadership, educational qualifications, and gender issues. Her ground-breaking contribution, The Public Librarian, would be published in 1952. Robert Leigh reported on library governance and collections. The findings and recommendations of the Inquiry significantly influenced library planning, namely the encouragement for the concept of larger units of service, the revision of standards, and the eventual achievement of federal aid for public libraries in 1956. The Library Services Act passed by Congress aimed to foster the development of public libraries in rural areas through federal funding. The Inquiry reports emphasized that democracy and enlightened citizenship would continue to be a vital part the public library’s mission on a broader societal level.

There were moments when Canadian contributions came to the fore. Edgar Robinson had chaired local arrangements. Anne Smith, the experienced Assistant Librarian at the University of British Columbia, assumed the presidency of the Pacific Northwest Library Association at its annual meeting held on August 25th. Kathleen Jenkins, president of the Canadian Library Association, sent a formal letter of greetings. But the Canadian highlight was Helen Gordon Stewart: she addressed ALA on its closing evening about her experience in the British West Indies. She had been involved from 1941–47 in a Carnegie Corporation funded project, the Regional Library of the Eastern Caribbean, that sought to create a more systematic library service across these islands, especially in Trinidad and Tobago.

The regional conference was one aspect of many efforts to forge closer ties between two nations. ALA’s Resolutions Committee closed the conference with a typical expression of appreciation for their Canadian sojourn: “Be it Further Resolved that as we leave sunny British Columbia with regret that our stay has been too short . . . .” In 1952, the Pacific Northwest Library Association revisited British Columbia in Victoria. ALA returned to Canada at a combined ALA-CLA conference in Montreal in 1960 which attracted more than 4,500 participants. The aspect of cross-border ties and cooperative action between ALA (or PNLA) and Canadian associations had strengthened after the Second World War. The CLA and ALA had formed an ALA-CLA Liaison Committee in 1946 that encouraged joint membership and included both president-elects as alternating chairs each year. The committee was a driving force in arranging the joint ALA-CLA Montreal conference in 1960. The theme of friendship and consensus on library matters would continue to be a unifying force throughout the 1950s and 60s.

Further reading:

The ALA Council meeting proceedings from the 1949 Far West regional conference are available in PDF format courtesy of the ALA’s Institutional Repository

Helen Gordon Stewart, “The Regional Library of the Eastern Caribbean,” Pacific Northwest Library Association Quarterly 14 (October 1949): 27–30.

Libraries in the Post War Period by Charles Sanderson, 1944

Libraries in the Post War Period, Being the Report of the Chief Librarian to the Toronto Public Library Board, January, 1944 by Charles R. Sanderson. Toronto: Toronto Public Library Board, 1944. 18 p.

Charles Sanderson’s Libraries in the Post War Period, published in January 1944, naturally focused on Toronto’s efforts and touched on the integration of national, provincial, and local matters. Sanderson had been recruited in England by George Locke to come to Toronto to be his assistant, and he succeeded Locke after his death in 1937. The new chief librarian had a first-hand knowledge of British library development and American service ideals that were penetrating Canadian librarianship. Beginning with Toronto, Sanderson developed a theme of library cooperation and formalized networking. In his introductory passages, he promoted five viewpoints:

■  the concept of metropolitan regions with linkages between large urban systems and smaller suburban libraries;
■  regional library systems utilizing bookmobiles;
■  a Dominion Library Commission which, as one part of its mandate, would establish a National Library that could provide an active book lending function;
■  Provincial Library Commissions would establish (or designate) Public Lending Libraries in cities, regional systems, and metropolitan areas. “All in their need would draw upon the Provincial Lending Libraries, which in their turn would draw upon the National Library.”
■ a per capita library expenditure of $1.25 would be sufficient on a national basis for such a workable national scheme.

After outlining his views on general library developments, Sanderson turned to the role of individual libraries within this network environment. He noted that libraries, especially in the United States, were undertaking many new ventures. During the war, collections were established in soldier’s camps and hospitals. Turning to his own library, Sanderson outlined some of the activities in Beaches, Gerrard, and Riverdale branches. These neighbourhood libraries were exhibiting the artists’ work, supporting an active drama league on a makeshift branch stage, hosting lectures, offering discussions and even concerts. Sanderson felt the community centre idea in the library provided an excellent opportunity to contribute to the development of cultural life. But he believed these activities were ancillary to the library’s primary purpose: providing and promoting books was the first requirement.

But the primary purpose of any public library, small or large, might be defined as “getting books read”: the creation and expansion of reading habits and the supply of books and collateral material to meet those habits, with the final purpose of making books contribute towards the well-being, material, mental, and cultural, of its community. (p.8)

He provided specific examples of this type of library service.

Citizens’ Forum at London Public Library, 1945

Citizens’ Forums: librarians should aim to make their knowledge useful in the form of suggestions for reading that could make the discussions informative and worthwhile and ensure that reading materials were available.

Lectures: Sanderson thought these much be sequential rather than different from one another. Groups such as the YMCA often provided a program of lectures that focused on a particular aspect that led to self-improvement. Assisting lecture series with requisite books could “build up” to something worthwhile in peoples’ lives.

Book talks: this form of library work was a proven staple in many urban centres. Sanderson could point to the Toronto library’s external relationships with various voluntary associations: the Workers’ Educational Association, the YWCA, adult and young people’s groups in churches, industrial-plant recreation clubs, and Home and School Councils. “Our own ‘book-talks’ are rather aimed towards reaching out to groups where reading is not yet a regular habit, that is, towards creating new readers.” These talks, library acquisitions, and lending, in general, should be less about recreational and novel reading and more about non-fiction. “Nobody pretends that all non-fiction is superior to all fiction,” but in a postwar setting, books helpful to the education and rehabilitation of veterans, focusing on training and skills, was one such subject area that demanded more attention, and consequently, an increased library budget.

In retrospect, Sanderson was comfortable with a metropolitan theme where larger urban libraries and smaller suburban areas could co-exist and enjoy their interdependence and independence. Metropolitan area jurisdictions and regional systems could meet the library needs of many without involving “any change in local autonomy beyond a co-operative agreement for public book provision.” (p. 2) From his perspective, the primary function of libraries was “getting books read” and providing the resources for individual adults and children, informal groups, national and local agencies, and different communities of interest to create and expand reading habits. Supplying aids for discussion groups, radio forums, book clubs, lectures, displays, exhibitions, and fairs would further the local library’s aim in the field of adult education. Toronto Public Library often created booklists built around the CBC’s Citizens’ Forums that started in 1943. Sanderson’s theme was grounded in local public library service ideas that most Ontario librarians could recognize and appreciate. The idea of civic art centres, community centres, libraries, auditoriums, and swimming pools serving as utilitarian war memorials was a current topic in Canadian newspapers.

However, broad plans for action across the nation required not only local or provincial revenue but also federal grants-in-aid. These grants were not forthcoming because the centres and libraries were considered to be locally administered and outside federal authority. Establishing a national library commission or national library also presented difficulties and delays. The metropolitan scheme advocated by Sanderson did not come into being in the Toronto area until 1953 and libraries were originally excluded from “metro” government arrangements. A coordinating metro library agency was not established in Toronto until 1958, two years after Charles Sanderson passed away.