80 Years Young and Still Going Strong!

In 2009, the Montreal Children’s Library will celebrate 80 years of service to families in Montreal. Members of the staff, like the children they serve, are full of energy and enthusiasm. The branches, brimming with educational, entertaining, and enriching resources and programs, continue to open a world of discovery for the young and the young at heart as they have for so many decades. 
 
Until 1929 there was no free public children's library service in the city of Montreal. The MCL began as a pioneering initiative of the "Local Council" (as the Montreal Council of Women was then called). Influenced by Elizabeth Murray’s love of books and the idea that every child should have the opportunity to enjoy books, the council started a fund-raising project to establish a children's library. With $3,000 the first branch was opened in the Fraser Institute under the guidance of Violet McEwan. 

As at present, a volunteer Board of Directors watched over the library's development. New branches opened in response to community needs, and others closed when the municipal system moved into the neighborhood to establish a city library branch. As a result, during the past eighty years, the library has served communities in over eighteen different locations. In 1938 the MCL was established as a charitable association and received the first grant of $500 from the City of Montreal. Today it receives roughly one third of its annual funding from the boroughs Sud-Ouest, St. Michel-Villeray-Park Extension and Ville Marie. The rest of the yearly budget must be raised through an annual campaign, donations from individuals, corporations, and foundations, and extensive grant writing.   

Today three branches (Atwater, Richmond Square, and Jean Rivard) offer a circulating and reference collection. The library branches also provide weekly Moms and Tots programs, pre-school story times, arts and crafts, and science, chess, and games clubs, as well as special programs on various themes. The branches receive regular weekly visits from daycares, schools and in the summer, day camps. In all of these ways, the library creates a stimulating and supportive environment in which children and their families can learn, discover, and have access to books and other library materials.   

The heart of all this work is the magical connection between books and children. Throughout the year the library makes a concerted effort to provide author/illustrator and storyteller visits to children in all of the communities we serve. Every fall we celebrate Canadian Children’s Book Week in French and English. In collaboration with the Montreal Association of Independent Libraries the Canada Council often funds author visits to the branches. For the second time, this spring the library will participate in the Festival Pour Enfants with the Blue Metropolis Literary Festival funded by the Toronto Dominion Bank. As a participant in Lire Dans L'ile this year, the Jean Rivard branch will be hosting author Bruno St. Aubin in May. The Atwater branch will also host Sarah O’Leary through the program “Writers out Loud” in collaboration with the Quebec Writers Federation with support from Canada Council. These events will provide wonderful encounters between children and those who create the books they enjoy at the branches. The Annual Festival of the Book will be celebrated in association with other community groups at Jean Rivard on April 23^rd.  

Starting in 2007, a three-year grant from the NSERC has funded a science literacy initiative to create weekly science clubs, enriched science programming, and to bring in new science books for children at all branches. On June 9th, 2007 Montreal Children’s Library hosted a launch event for this initiative at the Pepsi Forum featuring programs on biodiversity, the forest, and dinosaurs, attended by over 300 people. The popular Earth Day celebration in 2008 featured speakers on composting, local farming, biodiversity, the diversity of insects, and bird identification. Participants were invited to calculate their ecological footprint and craft their own “litter bugs” out of discarded containers. The “Science in the Park” summer series in Cabot Square Park reached many children from the community and local day camps. YTV’s “Mystery Hunters” dropped in near the end of the summer to document MCL’s invention contest. The event “Halloween Science at Hogwarts” brought together the literary success Harry Potter and science. Dressed as fictional professors of Herbology, Arithmancy, Divination, Magical Creatures and Potions MCL animators and volunteers demonstrated non-fiction botany, anatomy, biology, mathematics, and chemistry. The library looks forward to another dynamic year of science discovery in 2009. 

The Montreal Children’s Library has many outreach activities in the community. Librarians offer story programs to hospitalized and handicapped children and children with special needs at sites that include The Montreal Association for the Blind, The Montreal Oral School for the Deaf, The Shriner’s Hospital for Children, the Montreal Children’s Hospital, and St. Raphael’s Center. Mother Goose Rhyme Time, a program provided at local community centers, encourages children and their caregivers to enjoy rhymes and songs together. It also facilitates language acquisition, parent-child attachment, and positive parenting skills in a supportive learning environment. In 2008, the library, with support from MAIL and Canadian Heritage, added free online resources for research and entertainment (from any internet computer). In other words, if the children can’t come to the library the library goes to them. 

In 2008, working for the fourth consecutive year with the Lincoln Tupper Development Corporation, the borough of Ville-Marie, and the Peter McGill Community Council, enabled MCL to provide story times and cultural programming in Cabot Square Park throughout the summer. Over 1,800 people participated in 25 programs. It was a busy summer in the park in 2008 with six science activities (funded by the NSERC), six pre-school activities (funded by the CLSC METRO), seven school-age activities and six craft workshops (funded by the LTDC). In this way, young Montrealers are able to benefit both from the precious days of summer and from fun and enriching library activities at the same time.  

Our community library works with various partners to maximize resources for children and families, while carefully managing limited financial resources. Being free is expensive, but with a concerted community effort it is possible. This worthwhile endeavor provides vital access to books, and enriching activities and resources at no cost to children and families who might otherwise have nothing.  

With ongoing support from the boroughs, individuals, corporations, and foundations the Montreal Children’s Library will continue to provide vital support for literacy in Montreal for many years to come. Through these varied programs and services, the Montreal Children’s Library connects children to books and all that they represent: empowerment, education, entertainment, and sometimes, refuge. This benefits them for the rest of their lives.

 

 

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