Places to Grow: Public Libraries and Communities in Ontario, 1930-2000

The core of the book revolves around the shifting nature of Ontario’s political landscape. In many ways this is a story of successive governments, ambitious politicians, diligent bureaucrats, and endless library reports straddling the decades. Their aim appears to have been making even better a system that, despite weaknesses, was clearly the best in Canada. Three distinctive trends emerged in Ontario librarianship after the 1930s: first, a growing sense of professionalism in librarianship; second, an enhanced sense of belonging to a pan-Canadian library movement that in 1946 would result in the formation of the Canadian Library Association; and third, a heightened awareness of the competing demands of high culture and popular culture. Public libraries became an important vehicle for promoting community, albeit with competing visions of “space and place,” as Canada generally and Ontario specifically experienced post-World War II immigration and the baby boom. As libraries approached the 21st century, the concerns of digital formats and the all-encompassing Internet intertwined to alter the book-centric "bricks and mortar" world of libraries. Nonetheless, public libraries were well placed to survive this new threat, just as they had with the challenges of radio, television, and telecommunication challenges in the 20th century.