Following the outcome of World War I, in which Canada has wholeheartedly
participated on the side of the Allies, some British historians predicted that
the 20th century was going to belong to Canada – and how right they were! Within
a few decades, Canada has grown into the ranks of the world’s most advanced
industrial nations. Territorially the world’s second largest country in the
world, Canada has a population of some 33 million. This enormous land stretching
from sea to sea – Atlantic to Pacific -, possesses unlimited advantages as far
as population growth and natural resources are concerned. It has, however, some
disadvantages when it comes to generating a strong and centralized government
and developing a unique identity. Some of these stem from its great size and
geographic diversities, its English and French linguistic complexities, as well
as the looming presence of the mother country, Great Britain, and the
overpowering presence of the United States.
Canada consists of four major regions of highly different geographical and
demographic characteristics. The Atlantic (or Maritime) Region includes the four
eastern provinces: Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edwards
Island. The central region is made up of the two largest, “nation-building”
provinces, Quebec and Ontario. The Prairie Region is composed of Manitoba,
Saskatchewan and Alberta, while the Pacific (or West-Coast) Region is occupied
by the province of British Columbia. In addition, there are three large
territories in the northern part of the country, the Yukon, the North-West
Territories and …. Each of the above has its provincial and territorial elected
governments (legislatures), responsible for its own administration, having
authority over regional political, financial, educational, health care and some
other affairs. The combined federation of the provinces and the territories is
tied together by the Federal Government, seated in Ottawa. The latter is
responsible for, among other things, national policies on legislation, foreign
affairs, immigration, national defence and finance. Although Canada is headed by
the Governor General, who is the representative of the British Monarch, the
actual running of the country’s business is in the hands of the Prime Minister,
elected for four years.
The development of the Canadian library system has been influenced by the
complex factors described above. Some other factors include the nation’s
three-partite Anglophone and Francophone people of founding nations and the
ethnic demographic population. The latter is playing an increasingly important
role in matters political, economic and educational. According to Statistics
Canada data, the population is made up by 150 different nationalities, with as
many cultures. One in every four person is of a different language group other
than English or French. Library administrations were – and still are / compelled
to take into consideration and integrate these peculiarities, are to be
commanded for having been able to achieve the difficult task. Today Canadian
library services are among the world’s most advanced information systems. Before
expanding on the development of library services, let us examine the functional
structures of the system.
The Structure of the Library System
Organized information services in Canada date back as far as the early 18th
century, when the first public libraries were established in Nova Scotia.
As in most countries, there are four major types of library systems: (1) public
libraries, (2) university and college libraries, (3) government and other
special libraries, and (4) the libraries of schools, the various denominational
establishments, industrial enterprises and ethnic communities. At the top of the
pyramid is the National Library situated in Ottawa. It came into existence
relatively late, in 1953. Its functions are outlined in the National Library
Act, among which are included the development of a national library collection,
the establishment of a national bibliography (Canadiana), and the initiation of
new library and information techniques. It houses the national collection of
Canadian publications and/or publications pertaining to Canada.
The other libraries of national significance are the Canada Institute for
Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI), as well as the Parliament Library
and the Supreme Court of Canada library. CISTI was established in the 1930s and
its comprehensive collection is accessible to the general public. It is
considered as the national institute for literature in the scientific
disciplines. CISTI has played a pioneer role in the development of automated
bibliographic technology, such as CAN/SDI and CAN/OLE. (More on these later.)
The Parliament and Supreme Court of Canada libraries are strong in collections
pertaining to national political administration and legislative matters.
The second group includes the public and university libraries across Canada.
Some of the universities are having collections of several million volumes of
print and non-print material. The third group is made up of the large federal
and provincial government libraries, and have comprehensive collections in the
fields of agriculture, forestry, mining, fisheries and environment protection.
As the ministries are involved in basic research studies, equipped with modern
laboratories, their library facilities are also state of the art establishments.
At the bottom of the pyramid are the school libraries, the highly specialized
libraries of the large oil, gas and hitech industries, as well as the
ecclesiastical libraries, the collections of the media and other commercial
concerns.
The many-layered library system has an intricate structure of organizational and
administrative setup, giving the whole a semblance of a national frame. On the
administrative side each system has its practical arrangement. The public
libraries fall under the jurisdiction of the municipalities. They are headed by
library councils appointed from the ranks of the citizenry. The university and
college libraries report through the chief librarian, who has the rank of a
dean, to the University Vice President (Academic). The government library
directors answer to the Assistant Deputy Minister (Administration). There are,
as we shall see further on, branch libraries, each with its own library
committee, whose main functions are not of a policy-making, but rather of a
collection development nature. In reality, collections and systems development,
technical procedures, stuffing and budgeting, is carried out by the library
administration.
As no man is an island, there are connecting links between the various types of
libraries through their institutional, municipal and provincial library
committees. The organizations from their specific national societies such as the
Canadian Association of Public Libraries, Canadian Association of University and
College Libraries and the Canadian Association of Special Libraries. These, in
turn, are part of the Canadian Library Association (CLA). CLA forms the national
platform with its periodical and monographic publications, as well as annual
conferences attended by the members, as well as representatives of the authors’
and publishing companies associations.
The seemingly insurmountable handicaps created by geographical diversities and
governmental and linguistic complexities have been overcome by carefully planned
cooperation among the libraries. Owing to the light population pattern (3
persons/sq km), regional libraries were established in the provincial centres in
Regina, Winnipeg, Moncton, Vancouver and elsewhere. In the Prairie Region, and
notably in Saskatchewan, library services were extended to remote areas through
book mobiles. In the neighbouring Manitoba, hundreds of reading rooms, so called
Traveling Libraries, were set up in rural schools, vicarages, grocery stores,
and even in private homes of school teachers and volunteer library custodians.
Reading material was selected by the users from printed catalogues compiled by
the Extension Librarian and shipped via rail, boat and air. Another means of
securing easy access to library collections was by way of creating branch
libraries throughout the cities. The subject matter of the book collection held
by the branches was determined by the nature of the community in the districts,
e.g., agricultural, industrial, ethnic, etc.
Similarly, the university libraries also tended to place emphasis upon the
accessibility of their holdings. They have established faculty (branch)
libraries attached to the larger departments, such as Engineering, Medicine,
Architecture and Fine Arts, Education, Law. These special library holdings were
developed by the individual faculties and financed from their library budgets.
As a consequence of regionalization, librarians have sought further cooperation
among the different varieties of libraries. In the Maritime and Pacific Regions
(West Coast), for example, the public, university and government libraries have
joined forces in making their periodical and serial collections available to
each other through extensive union catalogues. In Ontario and Quebec, the dozens
of university and government libraries have expedited ILL (inter-library-loans
services) by daily delivery throughout the two provinces.
Library Practices
In Canada, as in most countries, library departments are divided into three main
areas: (1) Technical Services, (2) Public Services and (3) Library
Administration. The first two are headed by heads/chiefs of departments, while
library administration carried out by the chief librarian and his/her deputies.
The Technical Services area includes, among other functions, collections
development and acquisitions, cataloguing and classification, and processing of
material. The Public Services department is responsible for loans and reference
work, circulation of material, inter-library-loans, bibliographic service and
the management of special and archival collections. The Library Administration’s
functions are related to operational planning, human resources and technological
development. The preservation of material, e.g., binding, book repair, storage
and environmental protection (adequate lighting, humidity, de-acidifying) may
form a separate department depending on the size of the library.
In the earlier days, the most commonly used classification system was the Dewey
Decimal Classification (DDC). As library collections grew in size and diversity,
and as large commercial establishments started to take over the acquisition and
cataloguing functions for the individual libraries, DDC was gradually replaced
by the Library of Congress Classification (LCC) and the Anglo-American
Cataloguing Rules, along with the LC Subject Headings. Other classification
systems known to have existed in special libraries included the Universal
Decimal Classification (UDC) and the Oxford Decimal Classification (ODC).
Information Revolution
The technological advancement of the early ‘70s has opened up unforeseen
opportunities in Canadian library services by way of automation. Such manual
activities as acquisition, cataloguing, typing, filing of purchase order forms,
preparing catalogue cards and compiling and typing subject bibliographies were
replaced by automated services offered by the American Library of Congress and
the University of Toronto Library Services. At the beginning, Canadian libraries
made it a habit of ordering whole sets of LC cards and utilizing only the ones
they had acquired books for. Later on the system was improved upon. The
libraries reported to the commercial vendors the titles of their new
acquisitions and received fully catalogued cards for them. These entries still
needed some alterations to conform the call numbers and subject headings to
local practices.
The centralized library automation was fundamentally changed when large
computer-generated data bases replaced the time-consuming manual bibliographic
searching of periodical literature. The most ambitious systems were generated by
the Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux (CAB) in Great Britain, and the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA). The former offered extensive services via its
data base called AGRICOLA, which was an international bibliographic system,
while the USDA’s DIALOG came to be favoured for its in-depth coverage of
North-American scientific literature.
The Canadian government and university libraries were among the first to take
advantage of the above services. Local computer terminals were hooked into
DIALOG and AGRICOLA, and a one-shot current list of data was provided, selected
from millions of periodical publications put out worldwide, and in many
languages. Two Canadian systems were introduced by CISTI, also in the early
‘70s, when it undertook the automation of its periodical collection and created
two online systems known as CAN/SDI (Canadian/Selective Dissemination of
Information) and CAN/OLE (Canadian/Online Enquiries). The first proved to be the
most dramatic bibliographic service. Trained library staff, in collaboration
with individual research scientists, generated personalized interest profiles,
which in turn were matched against CISTI-data bases. Biweekly lists of
bibliographic information on related publications were mailed to the recipient’s
desk. The new system proved to be so efficient that, in many cases, the
researchers received bibliographic data on publications long before the work had
appeared in printed form. In the ‘80s the online literature services were
complemented by CAB’s CD-ROM, which offered local access to the compilations of
decades of publications. It goes without saying that, due to the above and other
bibliographic systems coupled with Internet, Canadian research scientists were
one of the best informed people in the world.
Library automation in the humanities started somewhat later and has evolved at a
slower pace. Acceptable automated systems capable of accommodating all the
special requirements were first imported from abroad. In the mid ‘70s the
National Library introduced its new nation-wide system, DOBIS. The university
libraries also expanded their services by generating computer-assisted data
bases. New automated indices and bibliographies appeared, among them the ERIC, a
comprehensive bibliography on education. The most far-reaching of the new
innovations was, however, the humanities version of CAN/OLE, offering online
bibliographic retrieval of current monographic and periodical literature. The
existing regional union lists and other cooperative sources, carried out
manually in the earlier decades, made work much easier for experts in creating
large data bases.
Automation of information services was expedited in the ‘80s, when the
individual libraries began converting their collections and services to
mini-computers. The new technology has a more complex key word and subject
heading setup and, as a result of its compatibility with other systems, is able
to connect into them, thus making more effective use of local and national
holdings. Also, installation of computer terminals at various points of the
libraries proved a time saver for both the library staff and clientele.
The Canadian Mosaic
Solving the phenomenal multiculturalism complex in library services was one of
the greatest accomplishments of Canadian librarianship. The Federal Bilingualism
and Biculturalism Act (B. @ B.), enacted in the early 1970s, and followed by the
Multiculturalism Act in the 1980s, officially declared Canada a bilingual -
English and French speaking – but a multicultural nature, and encouraged the
related institutions, government departments and the educational establishments,
to take the leadership in the enhancement and implementation of the new policy.
Shortly thereafter, the Ministry of Multiculturalism and Citizenship was
established, whose Secretariat, along with the National Library, has undertaken
the task of converting Canada into a multicultural nation. It should be noted
that Canada has always been a leader in implementing more liberal and humane
immigration and multicultural policies.
This historic period marked Canada’s national rejuvenation. For the first time,
ethnicity was considered to be an asset. Second and third-generation Canadians
began to show pride in their ancestry, and started to search for their roots.
The existing social and cultural societies continued their activity with new
enthusiasm. A number of weekend and evening schools and university faculties
dealing with ethnicity were introduced. The English and French vocabularies were
enriched by such terms as multiculturalism, Canadian Heritage, ethnicity,
ethnoculturalism, etc.
Canadian Hungarica
In order to implement the ethnocultural policy, national and regional library
councils were created, their primary function being to familiarize the public
with the Federal Government’s new approach to multiculturalism. Special surveys
were conducted, in cooperation with librarians and representatives of the major
ethnic organizations within the provinces. The aim was to determine the size of
the various ethnic groups, their background, their political, cultural and
educational characteristics, and their potential interest in library and
information services.
It was during this period that the Chair of Hungarian Studies at the University
of Toronto, the Hungarian Research Institute as an ancillary of the same
university, and the Hungarian Studies Association of Canada were created. It was
also the mid-seventies that witnessed the formation of the Hungarian-Canadian
Authors’ Association, as well as a number of other literary groups in Winnipeg,
Montreal, Hamilton and London, Ont. Inspired by the B. & B., several Hungarian
periodicals started publication, among them the Canadian-American Review of
Hungarian Studies (now Hungarian Studies Review) in Kingston and Toronto,
Tárogató in Vancouver, the Krónika and Tanú in Toronto and the Magyar
Képzõmûvészet in Edmonton. In addition, several Hungarian book collections were
established in university and public libraries throughout the country.
The National Library played a key role in developing collections in the
,,non-official” languages. A special branch, the Multilingual Biblioservice
(MB), was set up, with the mandate to develop a comprehensive ethnocultural
collection. MB’s Hungarica collection grew to more than seven thousand volumes
within a few years through publications acquired from Hungary and from authors
in the diaspora. The MB, by sharing its collection with other libraries, was
able to and provided leadership in extending library services to the ethnic
community throughout the regions.
Although only disperse efforts have been made to compile surveys of Hungarica
collections in Canada, publications by Hungarians in the pure and applied
sciences came to form an integral part of the library collections in CISTI and
the major universities. Generally speaking, the works of Hungarian research
scientists, especially those in the agricultural, soil, plant and health
sciences are held in high esteem in the scientific disciplines.
The Hungarian collections in the humanities (the works of novelists and poets in
particular) have been developed on the basis of local requirements. Statistics
maintained by the libraries and Statistics Canada indicate that Hungarica
holdings of some relatively smaller city libraries such as the ones in
Lethbridge, Alta., Hamilton and Windsor, Ont., outrank by far those held by some
metropolitan centres. The largest Hungarian collections are maintained by the
Metropolitan Toronto Library System and the John Robarts Research Library at the
University of Toronto, the former housing more than 10,000, the latter close to
25,000 volumes. There has been no surveys carried out on Hungarian rare book
collections in Canada. One of the most exhausting public library holdings of
Hungarian-Canadian authors is held by the Ottawa Public Library. The National
Archives of Canada and the Multicultural History Society of Ontario have
sizeable archival collections on Hungarian-Canadians. A comprehensive list of
archival material in Canada is provided by the bibliography Canadian Studies on
Hungarians, 1987, and its supplements published in 1992, 1995 and 1998, compiled
by the present author. There are known to be several private Hungarica
collections in existence. Also collections held by various Hungarian cultural,
religious and educational centres. Most significant of these are the János
Halász Collection at the Toronto Hungarian Cultural Centre. Other collections,
although much smaller and far less organized, are to be found in the Hungarian
cultural centres in Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Lethbridge, and
Victoria.
The End of a Renaissance
In spite of the above optimistic outline of multicultural library services and
bibliography, it is sad to note that the future of multiculturalism in Canada
gives cause for concern. The enthusiastic multicultural mentality that prevailed
not so long ago has entered into a declining phase. Owing to economic and
budgetary restrictions, the National Library has closed its Multilingual
Biblioservice and disbanded its large collection. From its catalogue disappeared
the section: “Publications in Other Languages,” as did the annual summaries of
ethnic Canadian literature from the University of Toronto Quarterly. One of the
few periodicals still publishing annual compilations, albeit highly selective
ones, and even those titles listed are mainly books and research papers
published in English and French, is the Canadian Ethnic Studies, published at
the University of Calgary.
The extensive subject bibliographies compiled a decade ago by such experts as
Alexander Malycky (Ukrainian, German), Hartmut Froeschle (German), Josef Pivato
(Italian), David Rome (Jewish), Suwanda Sugunasiri (South-East Asian), Michael
Batts (Central-European), John Miska (Hungarian and ethnic Canadian) remain
without supplements. It seems that the interest in the roots and ancestral
traditions is fading. The anglophone and francophone communities seem to have
grown tired of the financial burden caused by the government-sponsoring of alien
languages and cultures. What’s most heartening is the fact that some of the
immigrant intellectuals themselves find that multiculturalism has an adverse
affect on the natural process of integration and assimilation of the newcomers
into the mainstream Canadian society.
The competitive services offered by the public and private sectors are becoming
a memory of the past. “Pink slips,” “downsizing,” “re-engineering,”
“rightsizing” in human and material resources are becoming the accepted norm of
the day. Even the once flourishing universities and large government ministries
are compelled to streamline their programs by letting peripheral, although
important, programs go.
Unfortunately, the libraries are not exempt from the new trends. Valiently
economizing with their shrinking budgets, librarians are anxious to find some
pragmatic ways in order to maintain their good services. Let’s hope that they
will manage to survive through these trying times.
References
Peel, Bruce, ed.: Librarianship in Canada 1946 to 1967… Ottawa: Canadian Library
Association, 1968. 205 p.
Rothstein, Samuel: “Libraries.” Pages 1003-1006, in Encyclopedia Canadiana, 1st
ed.
(Edmonton: Hurtig, 1985).
A World of Information: Creating Multicultural Collections and Programs in
Canadian Public Libraries. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1994. 61 p.
Miska, John: Canadian Studies on Hungarians, 1886-1986. Regina: Canadian Plains
Research Center, 1987. 245 p. (Supplements published in Budapest, 1955 and
Toronto-Budapest, 1998.)
(A bilingual, English and Hungarian version of this study has been published as
an introduction to: Hungarica to be Found in Canadian Libraries, by the National
Széchényi Library, Budapest, 1997.)
