College and Research Libraries


By FRED LANDON 

The Library at the University of 
Western Ontario 

Mr. Landon, whi directs the library he 
describes, is also a historian and author of 
Western Ontario and the Amer:ican Fron-
tier and Lake Huron. 

U NIVER..SITIES have from early times be-come the depositories for treasures of 
literature, the arts, and the sciences. It 
was a Sir Thomas Bodley who in I 597 
began to build up for Oxford University 
the collection of books that has since grown 
into the Bodleian Library, one of the 
world's great treasure houses. It was a 
John Harvard who at his death in I 638 
gave a bequest of eight hundred pounds 
and something over three hundred volumes 
as a foundation for the New England col-
lege which through the years has become 
one of the chief universities of the world 
and whose library is the richest in resources 
of any university in the Western Hemi-
sphere. 

The library of the University of Western 
Ontario, at London, had its Bodley in the 
person of John Davis Barnett. Born in 
England, he came tQ Canada in I 866 to 
become a draftsman for the old Grand 
Trunk Railway~ He advanced to become 
a mechanical superintendent and during 
most of his life was actively engaged in 
such duties, but from his first arrival in 
Canada until his death in I924 he was an 
assiduous collector of books and other bibli-
ographical material. When in I9I8 he 
gave his accumulations to the University of 

MARCH, 1945 · 

Western Ontario, the bound volumes ex-
ceeded forty thousand. In addition, there 
were many thousands of pamphlets, maps, 
prints, and other miscellaneous items which 
added greatly to the value of the collection. 
His only stipulation was that the university 
should adopt a liberal policy with respect 
to loans to persons outside the institution. 
This has been consistently carried out, with 
the result that residents of Western On-
tario have access to many scarce or special-
ized books and journals which they could 
not reasonably expect to find in any public 
library. 

The library of the University of Western 
Ontario had but meager resources when the 
Barnett collection came in I9I8. The ad-
ministration, realizing the value of this 
gift, made immediate provision for its de-
velopment by proper classification and 
cataloging and by expanding the library 
~ervices generally. The books had been 
singularly well chosen and probably 90 per 
cent were suitable for university use. Dur-
ing the years between I9I8 and his death 
in I924 Dr. Barnett continued to expand 
his holdings, and by his will he made a 
substantial bequest to the library. 

Looking back to the coming of this gift, 
the first ·large benefaction ever received 
by the university, it can be seen that it had 
two important effects. It , was almost at 
once followed by other benefactions for 
which it had set an example. Furthermore, 
the charact~r of the gift infll.lenced later 

133 



library p.olicy in a number of ways. The 
Barnett books, for example, were rich in 
such fields as Canadiana and Americana, 
Shakespeariana, English literature, and 
folklore. The scope of . these sections sug-
gested that they should be continuously de-
veloped. Small endowments received 
through the years have provided income , · 
which can be specially applied to such por-
tions of the library. 

More interesting, however, is the in-
fluence which the Barnett gift has exerted 
in other directions. The large stores of 
prints and illustrations laid the foundation 
for a practical working collection in the 
field of art. The maps, many of them of 
early Canadian and American significance, 
provided the ·foundation for a department 
that has since developed extensively. Maga-
zine excerpts, selected over half a century 
and carefully classified, provided much un-
usual material. A graduate student who 
brought a list of over one hundred refer-
ences on one of the nineteenth-century poets 
was astonished to find more than three-
quarters of them in one single parcel. 
Thus, Barnett left more than a large private 
library of books. He laid the foundati~n 
for special services which are noticeable to-
day in the activities of the library. 

Art Department 

The art department, of which mention 
has been made, contains few rare prints 
such as an art gallery might possess. But it 
does contain thousands of reproductions, 
gathered from · varied sources and classified 
so that they can be made of practical use. 
The instructor in English, for example, who 
desires pictorial material relating · to Wil-
liam Blake can be supplied with reproduc-
tion of that author's paintings, facsimiles 
of title pages and text of his books, and 
with portraits of the man himself. From 
the archeological jmaterial, largely clipped 

from duplicate files of the Illustrated Lon-
don News and other journals, may be 
drawn a variety of illustrations of classic 
architecture, art, costume, and the land-
scapes of those countries embraced in what 
·we call the .Ancient Wor-ld. Apart from 
such classroo~ uses, the art room constant-
ly supplies material for exhibitions· in the 
library itself. 

In addition to its stores of pictures the 
art room contains, a1so, files of clippings 
and magazine articles. on the . artists them .. 
selves, on musical composers, and on actors, 
as well as the archeological material men-
tioned above. The pictures relating to 
Shakespeare fill several drawers of a verti-
cal file, classified first as to play, then by the . 

· leading characters, and finally under such 
general headings as stage setting and cos-
tume. The general collection on costume 
is also in this department. 

The development of such department~ 
within a library of' moderate size is usually 
feared as likely to involve a considerable 
expense. But this is not necessarily so. At 
the time when the art 'collection at Western 
Ontario was in its first stages of organiza-
tion, an extensive purchase was made of 
vertical files ·and other secondhand equip-
ment discarded by a large life insurance 
company which was refurnishing its offices . . 
The supply was sufficient to meet all needs 
for years ahead. There is a suggestion ·here 
for other libraries, since the postwar period 
w'ill probably bring a large volume of office 
equipment to the market, discarded from 
government departments whose activities 
are ceasmg. 

Manuscripts 

From time to time the library has ac-
quired extensive collections of manuscript 
material. One of the most interesting · of 
these consists of the diaries and papers of the 
Rev. James Evans, the Wesleyan missionary 

134 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



who a hundred years ago devised the Cree 
syllabic characters which gave to those 
Indian tribes of the Canadian Northwest 
their first form of writing. At Norway 
House, far north on Lake Winnipeg, Evans 
printed portions of the Bible for the use 
of his Indian charges, using birchbark and 
skin when paper was not to be had, making 
his type from the lead linings of tea chests, 
his ink from lampblack and fish oil, and 
utilizing an old fur press fo.r the printing 
operations. Specimens of his work are rare 
and highly valued. Some portions of the 
papers in this collection have been printed 
by the Ontario Historical Society. ' 

A second important group of papers are 
those of the Hon. David Mills, who rose 
from humble schoolteaching in one of the 
Western Ontario counties to be minister of 
justice for Canada and later a justice of 
the Supreme Court of the Dominion. Mills 
entered Parliament in 1867, the year of 
Confederati9n, and in the political events 
of the next thirty years he was a conspicu-
ous figure. 

There are other similar collections of 
some magnitude, but along with them have 
come a constant flow of individual docu-
ments or small collections of documents, 
chiefly related to the history of the penin-
sula lying between Lakes Huron and Erie 
and the Georgian Bay-Western Ontario. 
A few years ago the library received the 
records contained in Middlesex County 
Court House (Middlesex being the county 
in which London is situated). Documents 
covering a period of almost a century were 
included in this large accession, which was 
almost immediately followed by receipt of 
the records of the county of Huron, lying 
immediately to the north. As the two 
counties differed in a marked way in origin 
and background, the two groups of papers 
supplemented rather than duplicated each 
other. 

MARCH~ 1945 

The organization and development of 
these papers and of extensive collateral ma-
terial (pamphlets, broadsides, etc.), has re-
sulted in the collection of regional history, 
housed separately in the library and directed 
by Elsie M. Murray, a specialist in this 
field. The regional collection is designed 
to illustrate the social ap.d economic develop-
ment of Western Ontario. It contains a 
variety of material that would be lengthy 
to ·describe. RecQrds of early municipal 
bodies, courts, business enterprises, and re-
ligious organizations are naturally included. 
Diaries, private letters, etc., tell much of 
the life of earlier days. Photographs culled 
from old-fashioned albums show the cos-
tume ot preceding generations. Programs 
of lectures, debates, and musical events 
record the cui tural · growth of the area. 

Publications 

Western Ontario, like nearby states in 
the republic, has reached the age when it 
is becoming increasingly conscious of its 
past. Local historical societies flourish in 
the province, and the university, through 
its regional collection, is cooperating in their 
work. A mimeographed publication, issued 
quarterly and distributed without charge, 
bears the title Western Ontario Historical 
Notes. In content it is exactly what the 
title indicates. It contains short articles 
on locai"history, an occasional original docu-
ment, news of the societies, and a popular 
Notes and Queries section. 

A second publication coming from this 
branch of the library has _as title Western 
Ontario History Nuggets. Four of these 
have so far been distributed, each being 
either a separate little study or the reproduc-
tion of a document. The second issue, for 
example, was a bibliography of the news-
papers of one of the comities within the 
university's area. The library itself pos-
sesses an extensive collection of Canadian 

135 

' 

' 



newspapers and also a considerable file of 
American newspapers of the Civil War era. 

London is in the center of one of the 
richest agricultural areas of eastern Canada 
and its university is, therefore, much in-
terested in the problems of the farm. It is 
interested also in the history of agriculture, 
and the collection of earlier agricultural 

. journals at London is probably the most 
extensive in Canada, comprising not only 
Canadian titles but alsq many of those of 
the Eastern states. Before the distinctively 
Canadian farm journals reached any con-
siderable circulation such American journals 
as the Genesee Farmer, the Ohio Farmer., 
the Cultivator., etc., had many subscribers 
in the province of Ontario and doubtless 
exercised some measure of influence upon 
farming practice. It is important, there-
fore, that they should be preserved in a 
Canadian library just as they are preserved 
iri American libraries. The Western On-
tario 'holdings of American farm · journals 
have been chiefly acquired by exchange with 
other libraries in the United States. 

Religious Histories 

There are two other sections of the li-
brary to which attention might be drawn. 
The first of these is the Canadian denomi-
national religious history. There are larger 
separate collections of Methodist history 
or Presbyterian history or Baptist history 
in other Canadian libraries, but probably 
nowhere else will so much be found in one 
place relating to the religious past of the 
country. This includes scarce early jour-
nals and records of the various church 
assemblies. As one aspect of social history, 
this Canadian field will bear wide cultiva-
tion. 

A final section of the library which de-
serves · mention is that of American history. 
There are extensive and complete files of 
many of the state historical journals. The 

collection of books on slavery is large and 
includes a lengthy file of the African Re-
pository., organ of t~e American Coloniza-
tion Society. Curiously, a portion of that 
society's pwn file of this journal has found 
its final resting place in this Canadian li-
brary. For several of the states there is a 
considerable amount of local history on the 
shelves. 
' Prior to 1934 the general library of the 
University of Western Ontario had a suc-
cession of temporary homes. In the decade 
prior to 1934 it was housed on two floors 
of a portion of the main university b.uilding. 
In the latter year, however, the present 
Lawson Memorial Library was opened, 
honoring the names of Frank Lawson, a 
London businessman, and his wife, by whose 
bequest the erection of the building was 
made possible. In its floor plans it bears 
some resemblance to the University of 
Michigan Library, though, of course, on a 
much reduced scale. The main reading 
room on the second floor seats 200, while 
other reading rooms and carrells provide for 
an additional 125 readers. The · stacks were 
designed to hold about 170,000 volumes, but 
as that capacity will be ~trained within the 
next few years plans are now under way for 
expansiOn. 

The Lawson Memorial Library, in addi-
tion to its reading rooms, has an art and 
music room, a newspaper room, a rare book 
room, and a museum of North American 
archeology. The museum, of which Wil-
frid Jury is honorary curator, is a center 
from which extensive archeological work 
has been carried out in Western Ontario, 
and several bulletins have been published 
setting forth the results of excavations. 
Groups of students are occasionally taken 
on exploratory expeditions and given some 
acquaintance with the proper methods o+ 
excavating Indian village sites. 

Though the museum is primarily devoted 

136 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES 



to Indian archeology, it has in recent years 
expanded the scope of its collecting to in-
clude objects illustrating the pioneer life 
of Western Ontario. When articles, such 
as farm implements, are too large for ex-
hibition, models have been made to scale 
and given a proper setting. A reproduction 
in miniature of a pioneer log cabin and its 
outbuildings, togeth~r with examples of 
furniture, etc., forms one of the most in-
teresting of such groups so far assembled. 
Another is a reproduction of a Huron In-
dian village of the early seventeenth century. 
These small-scale reproductions have been 
found effective in conveying through ·the 
eye the details of social life of the past. 
They are the work of Mr. ] ury and his 
father, Amos ] ury. The latter, a farmer 
by occupation, is talented as a painter in 
water colors and also does exquisite model-
ing in clay. 

The library of the medical faculty of 
the University of Western Ontario, housed 
in the medical school building, is outstand-
ing in Canada in the richness of its collec-
tions of journals. But it, too, has sqme 
features that are of more general interest. 
It has, for instance, a large historical 
section built up through the years which, 
while not possessing any of the great 
treasures in its ' field, does include many 
items of considerable interest. Two edi-
tions of Dr. William Beaumont's record 
of his experiments in gastric research are 
among the American i terns. They take us 
back to the day when the young French-
Canadian Alexis St. Martin received a gun-
shot wound in the stomach and was nursed 
back to life and health by the scientifically-
minded army surgeon on Mackinac Island. 
The observations which Dr. Beaumont was 
enabled to make through the open wound 
(which never closed) brought important 
advances in physiology and form one of the 
bases of the modern study of dietetics. 

MARCH~ .1945 

In addition to its historical collection, the 
library has a growing collection of book-
plates, much of it related to medicine, and 
also a collection of medic~! portraits. It 
has gone far, too, in the building up of 
scrapbook collections on subjects related to 
its work. In the local historical field ex-
tensive investigations have been carried on 
by a London physician connected with the 
medical school staff, Dr. Edwin Seaborn, 
whose new volume on the history of the 
profession in Western Ontario will appear 
in the next few months. Dr. Seaborn's 
collection of notes and other data on the 
subject of his book will be deposited in the 
medical school library. 

LAWSON MEMORIAL ' LIBRARY 

The most recent building added to the 
campus at the university is the Mcintosh 
Memorial Art Gallery, opened in 1942. It.s 
activities are closely related to those of the 
library. The building, a very gem of 
architecture, was provided for in the will 
of Mrs. Wilhelmina Mcintosh as a me-
morial to her husband, ] ohn Gordon Mc-
Intosh, and herself. She also bequeathed 
to the university her collection of pictures, 
about fifty in all, and provided an endow-
ment both for the upkeep of the gallery and 
for the purchase from time to time of addi-
tions to the collection. 

Mrs. Mcintosh's own pictures were 
chiefly of the French and British schools 
of the later nineteenth century, and no de-

137 



cision has yet been made as to the field or 
fields in which development should take 
place. London, though a city of less than 
one hundred thousand population, is blessed 
with two art galleries, the civic gallery being 
'in the new Williams Memorial Public Li-
brary. Here chief emphasis has been placed 
upon loan exhibitions, changed monthly and 
continuous throughout the year. The two 
London galleries work in close cooperation, 
a condition which prevails in equal degree as 
between the public library and the library 
of the university. 

The Mcintosh Gallery, in addition to its 
primary purpose, is also the headquarters 
of the Western Ontario Conservatory of 
Music, affiliated with the university, and is 
used for musical lectures and recitals. It 
contains the extensive collection ot records 
which was provided by the Carnegie Corpo-
ration and also a small musical library of 
biography, criticism, and miniature scores~ 
Th~ university li~rary also has an extensive 
collection of books in the field of music. 

The libraries of this university have as 
their primary function the meeting of such 
regular needs as arise in an institution with 
an enrolled student body of about two thou-
sand. These needs have the first call upon 
the staff and resources. But the library 
administration has not hesitated to explore 
paths more commonly regarded as possible 
only in a library of larger size and with 
greater resources. What has been done at 
Western Ontario represents, therefore, the 
adaptation of such activities to a smaller in-
stitution and the carrying out of plans by 
economical methods. The results of such 
ventures as have been undertaken have been 
considered profitable. The building up of 
the regional collection of history, for ex-
ample, has attracted wide attention in the 
province and has brought ~onsiderable "corn 
to the bin." Outside contributors provide 

most of the copy for the issues of Western 
Ontario Historical Notes. Many gifts for 
the regional collection have come from . the 
same sources. 

A word might be added concerning the 
exchange ' of duplicates which . has been car-
ried on extensively with other libraries for 
many years past. Over the last ten years 
the library has added about one thousand 

·volumes annually from this sourc~ and has 
disposed of as many or more to other in-
stitutions. All exchanges have been upon a 
rough piece-for-piece basis, making for a 
minimum of recording. 

Years Ahead 

In all that has been done, the years ahead 
have been kept in mind. There is no regu-
lar department · of art at this university as 
yet, but when such a department does come, 
as it probably will within the next few 
years, there will be much needed material 
assembled, classified, and ready for use. In 
the same way the regional collection will 
provide valuable material for graduate work 
in history. Already it is giving stimulus to 
local historical work in the province, as well 
as serving the professional ranks. 

It would be improper to convey the im-
pression that any of the specialized depart-
ments of this library which have been 
mentioned are in any state other than that 
of development. J\.1ost of the activities are 
still in the experimental stage, perhaps the 
most interesting stage of all. None of them 
would have been possible without the pres-
ence on the staff of men and women who 
had the spirit of adventure and were them-
selves enthusiastic over the things which 
they were doing. Mistakes have been made, 
processes have had to be discarded, but 
enough has been realized and brought to 
fulfilment to give. constant encouragement 
to go yet farther. 

138 COLLEGE AND RESEARCH LIBRARIES