Halifax Public Libraries

Halifax Public Libraries

Clockwise from top right: Cole Harbour, Central, Musquodoboit Harbour, Sackville, and Shatford Memorial branches.
Country	Canada
Established	1864 (Citizens Free Library), 1996 (Halifax Public Libraries merger)
Reference to legal mandate	Libraries Act (Nova Scotia), 1989
Location	Halifax Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia
Branches	14
Collection
Items collected	business directories, phone books, maps, government publications, books, periodicals, genealogy, local history,
Size	~1,164,600 items
Access and use
Circulation	4,709,496 (2013-14)
Population served	414,400
Other information
Director	Asa Kachan, Chief Librarian & CEO
Website	Halifax Public Libraries

Halifax Public Libraries (HPL) is a Canadian public library system serving residents of Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is the largest public library system in Nova Scotia, with over 2.8 million visits to library branches and 172,520 active registered borrowers or 44% of the municipality's population. With roots that trace back to the establishment of the Citizens' Free Library in 1864, the current library system was created in 1996 during municipal amalgamation, and now consists of 14 branches and a collection of almost 1 million items.

Halifax Mechanics' Institute was one of a series of Mechanics' Institutes that were set up around the world after becoming popular in Britain. It housed a subscription library that allowed members who paid a fee to borrow books. The Mechanic's Institutes libraries eventually became public libraries when the establishment of free libraries occurred. One of the members of the Mechanics' Institute about 1835 was Samuel Cunard.

In 1864, the Honourable William Young purchased the heavily indebted Halifax Mechanic’s Library and donated the collection to establish the city’s first free public library, The Citizens’ Free Library. Anyone “above the age of 18 who were of a known and respectable nature” could borrow one book at a time. The library found a permanent home in 1890 on the second floor of City Hall, where the office of the Mayor of Halifax is now located.

Some talks about a new municipally-funded library in 1901 were unsuccessful.

In 1948, Halifax had “a single over-crowded, under-equipped room at the end of a corridor” located in the City Hall building. The conditions and poor services of the Citizens' Free Library room even failed in comparison to much smaller towns in Nova Scotia, such as Amherst.

The Halifax Memorial Library "was born out of a true spirit of collaboration and of steadfast persistence from a variety of service clubs and citizens' groups active" in 1945 immediately after World War II. The first sod was turned on 21 April 1949, in time to celebrate the city’s 200th anniversary. The former central library opened in 1951 as a memorial to the war dead.

The Halifax City Regional Library system added the North Branch Library on Gottingen Street in 1965, the Captain William Spry Public Library in Spryfield in 1983, and the Thomas Raddall Public Library in Clayton Park in 1989. In 1973 and 1974, the Spring Garden Road Library expanded from 25,000 sq.ft. to 38,000 sq.ft. to accommodate increasing demands for space.