American Philanthropy and Canadian Libraries: The Politics of Knowledge and Information

John D. Blackwell is the reference librarian and collections coordinator
of the Goldfarb Library at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

The early development of Canadian libraries owes much to American
philanthropy, particularly that of the Carnegie and Rockefeller
foundations.

In 1991, while researching at the Rockefeller Archives Center in
Pocantico Hills, New York, Buxton and Acland came across a 1941
“Report on Canadian Libraries,” commissioned by the Rockefeller
Foundation. American Philanthropy and Canadian Libraries, a slim but
carefully researched and eloquently written volume, not only reproduces
the 1941 McCombs report but also sets this important chapter of Canadian
cultural history into the wider context of such major landmarks as the
Massey–Lévesque Commission (1951).

Charles F. McCombs (1887–1947), superintendent of the Main Reading
Room at the New York Public Library, spent two months during the summer
and autumn of 1941 touring Canadian libraries. His report offers an
unvarnished, often unflattering, portrait of Canadian libraries and
librarianship less than six decades ago. Of one legislative library,
McCombs observes, “It is more than likely that considerable material
of interest could be unearthed here, if one had the time and were
permitted to poke into corners. The librarian is a pleasant elderly lady
who knows little about books, and less about cataloguing.” Hardly any
Canadian library receives high marks, when graded by contemporary
American standards.

Equally interesting are McCombs’s nine recommendations. These include
“microphotography” (microfilming) of historical newspapers, support
for the newly established Canadian Library Council (now the Canadian
Library Association), and the preparation and publication of major
research tools (e.g., an index to Canadian periodicals). In one
particularly impassioned section of his report, McCombs declares,
“Canada is almost the only civilized country that has not a National
Library. ... [W]hat can be said concerning a country that decline[s] to
recognize the national importance of books?”

Canadian library history—an area traditionally ignored in Canadian
historiography—is finally emerging as a research field. This volume
makes a valuable contribution to the literature of histoire du livre and
raises important questions—such as the viability of cultural
nationalism—for further investigation.