A History of Oxford County's Library Services

[This page is under construction. It is not complete and may contain inaccuracies.]

1. Before the Age of County Libraries (1800-1899)

1835 | Woodstock opens its first library. This may be the earliest modern library established in Oxford County.

1855 | Ingersoll establishes its first library, locating it in a local school.

1882 | Ontario passes its Free Libraries Act, which allows towns and cities to establish free, tax-supported public libraries.

1883 | The Toronto Public Library opens Ontario's first free public library. Guelph opens its free library the same year. And, although it's not a free one, the village of Embro establishes its first library.

1886-98 |  Indiana, Wyoming, and Ohio are among the earliest American to pass laws that allow for some form of library service to organize at county level.

2. The Call for County-Level Library Service Grows (1900-1936)

1900-17 | Scottish-born American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie offers library building grants to qualifying towns and cities, which funds the construction of over 2,500 library buildings (known as Carnegie libraries) around the world, including 125 in Canada, 111 of which were located in Ontario and 5 in Oxford County. Woodstock opens its Carnegie library in 1909; Ingersoll's opens in 1910, Tillsonburg's in 1915, Norwich's in 1916, and Tavistock's in 1917. A sixth, which was planned for Otterville and was to serve South Norwich township, was never built.

1909 | California becomes the first American state to pass legislation allowing for county public library systems to form.

1912 | W.H. Arison, the chairman of the Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library's board, addresses the annual Niagara Institute with his paper, “Library Extension on County Lines”. This is the earliest proposal on record for the development of county-level library services in Ontario.

1932 | Under the leadership of the Sarnia Public Library's Dorothy Carlisle, Ontario's first county library association forms in Lambton County. Its initial membership comprises seven libraries but later expands to eighteen member libraries. Based on successful models in England and the United States, county library associations operate as collectives that rotate shared collections among member libraries and organize “traveling libraries” (early versions of what later become bookmobiles) to remote locations.

1933 | F.C. Jennings, the provincial Inspector of Public Libraries, writes favourably of the county library association model in his annual report. Although Ontario's Public Libraries Act does not yet allow county public libraries to form (nor does it explicitly recognize any form of library service at county level), Jennings approves $300 annual grants for any county associations that form in Ontario.

1934 | The Middlesex County Library Association forms ca. September-October. By December, it comprises fifteen member libraries. 

1936 | At a February meeting of the Thamesford Public Library's board, librarian R.E. Crouch of the London Public Library delivers a paper titled “County Library Associations and How One Worked in Middlesex County”. By March, Thamesford's library board begins to organize a county library association for Oxford. In April, as part of its annual conference, the Ontario Library Association passes a resolution calling for legislative changes that recognize the existence and needs of county library associations. By late spring, the Elgin County Library Association forms.

The Thamesford Public Library building. (Courtesy of the County of Oxford Archives.)

From September through November, and with further encouragement from R.E. Crouch, representatives from various libraries in Oxford County meet and consider forming an Oxford County Library Association. By late fall, as many as seventeen libraries show interest in the plan.

3. The Oxford County Library Association (1937-47)

1937 | In January, the officers of the Oxford County Library Association submit charter documents to the county to establish the Oxford County Library Association (OCLA). Blythe Terryberry of the Woodstock Public Library and Irene Cole of the of the Ingersoll Public Library co-supervise the Association's operations, using space in the Woodstock Public Library's basement for an office. Annual membership fee for member libraries is $15.00. To rotate shared collections, representatives from each member library meet every three months at the Woodstock Public Library to exchange books. Once books have travelled to all member libraries, they are placed into various member libraries permanently.

In July, Angus Mowat begins his tenure as Ontario's Inspector of Public Libraries.

1939 | According to Inspector Mowat's annual report, five fully chartered and recognized county library associations exist in Ontario, including Lambton, Middlesex, Elgin, and Oxford.

1940 | After organizing unofficially in 1936, the Essex County Library Association establishes itself as Ontario's sixth county library association.

1941 | The Huron County Library Association forms.

1944 | Inspector Mowat drafts revisions to the existing Public Libraries Act that will allow full county level public library systems to form. His work continue into 1945.

1946 | The Welland County Library Association forms. It is Ontario's eleventh such association.

1947 | In April, the Public Libraries Amendment Act of 1947 receives royal ascent, with changes effective January 1948. It does not include provisions for county-level public libraries; instead, the Act requires all existing county library associations re-establish themselves as "cooperatives". The change requires a county council to authorize a cooperative by passing a bylaw and to appoint county level boards. County councils are allowed to supplement annual provincial grants but not to exceed the province's annual legislative amount.

Angus Mowat, whose title is now Director of Public Libraries in Ontario, attends a meeting of the Oxford County Library Association in June and addresses members about the public library situation in the province. In September, County Council recommends that the "formation of the County Library Cooperative" be filed, in anticipation of the Libraries Act amendments.