Librarian Robert Block in a Medicine Hat Library, 1980

(Source: contentdm.ucalgary.ca)

mastermaq:

(via Lost Treasure of the Day: Edmonton’s Streetcar Bookmobile - Henry Grabar - The Atlantic Cities)

“Hagerstown, Maryland, may have pioneered the bookmobile in North America around the turn of the century, but it was Edmonton, Canada, which perfected it.”

“EPL’s bookmobile, seen here circa 1980, began operating in 1941 via streetcar and later by bus in 1947. The vehicles ran until 1992, and may make a comeback in somewhat of a different form over the next few years.”

(Source: metronews.ca)

Men’s smoking room at Strathcona Public Library, Edmonton, Alberta, 1914.

“Apparently in 1914, it was believed that smoke wouldn’t damage the books, but women might.”

(Source: facebook.com)

“Federal librarians and archivists who set foot in classrooms, attend conferences or speak up at public meetings on their own time are engaging in “high risk” activities, according to the new code of conduct at Library and Archives Canada…The code, which stresses federal employees’ “duty of loyalty” to the “duly elected government,” also spells out how offenders can be reported. “It includes both a muzzle and a snitch line,” says James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers…“Once you start picking on librarians and archivists, it’s pretty sad,” says Toni Samek, a professor of library and information studies at the University of Alberta. She specializes in intellectual freedom and describes several clauses in the code as  “severe” and “outrageous.” The code is already having a “chilling” effect on federal archivists and librarians, who used to be encouraged to actively engage and interact with groups interested in everything from genealogy to preserving historical documents, says archivist Loryl MacDonald at the University of Toronto.”

(Source: vancouversun.com)

UPDATE: Timbuktu manuscripts missing, not torched?

“When hundreds of French soldiers rolled into the remote desert city in northern Mali on Monday, cheered by thousands of residents who were ecstatic that the Islamist rebels had fled, one of the biggest fears was the fate of Timbuktu’s ornately crafted manuscripts, as precious to world history as the Dead Sea Scrolls…The city’s mayor, exiled far away in Mali’s capital, alleged that the Islamist extremists had torched the manuscript libraries, burning them to the ground. This was quickly disproved by a Sky TV crew embedded with the French soldiers, who found the main library intact, alleviating the worst fears of many scholars. Inside the library, television reports showed a few small piles of ash, along with dozens of empty boxes. Up to 10,000 manuscripts were gone.” Read more. 

UPDATE January 30: More information here from the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project.

“Since the start of this week there are reports about the destruction of library buildings and book collections in Timbuktu. It sounds as if the written heritage of the town went up in flames. According to our information this is not the case at all. The custodians of the libraries worked quietly throughout the rebel occupation of Timbuktu to ensure the safety of their materials.”

“In the basement of the University of Alberta’s Rutherford Library, in the climate-controlled Bruce Peel Special Collection, you’ll find the Janeite’s Holy Grail: a first edition of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice…Linda Quirk, second-in-command of the Peel, says the university has no record of how it came to own the book, or who might have donated it. In fact, right up until the late 1980s or early 1990s, it sat on the regular library shelves, where anyone could sign it out. You can still see glued-in piece of lined paper where librarians stamped the due date. Miraculously, over all those years, no enthusiastic undergraduate nor absent-minded professor ever made a note in the margins, underlined a word, or damaged the spine.”

(Source: edmontonjournal.com)

Distressing news from Timbuktu.

“Islamist insurgents retreating from the ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu have set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 13th century, in what the town’s mayor described as a “devastating blow” to world heritage…The manuscripts survived for centuries in Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara hidden in wooden trunks, boxes beneath the sand and caves. The majority are written in Arabic, with some in African languages, and one in Hebrew, and cover a diverse range of topics including astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and women’s rights. The oldest dated from 1204”