Toronto Public Library
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| Country | Canada |
|---|---|
| Established | 1884 |
| Location | Toronto, Ontario |
| Branches | 100 |
| Collection | |
| Size | 11 million (2013) |
| Access and use | |
| Circulation | 32,032,036 (2012) |
| Population served | 2,615,060 (2012) |
| Other information | |
| Budget | $188,748,470 (2015) |
| Director | Vickery Bowles (City Librarian) |
| Website | www |
Toronto Public Library (TPL) (French: Bibliothèque publique de Toronto) is a public library system in Toronto, Ontario. It is the largest public library system in Canada and in 2008, had averaged a higher circulation per capita than any other public library system internationally, making it the largest neighbourhood-based library system in the world. Within North America, it also had the highest circulation and visitors when compared to other large urban systems. Established as the library of the Mechanics' Institute in 1830, the Toronto Public Library now consists of 100 branch libraries and has over 12 million items in its collection.
In 1830, a library was established in the York Mechanics' Institute. In 1884, the collection became the Toronto Public Library. James Bain was the first chief librarian and he supplemented the collection with $15,000 worth of books purchased on a trip to England in late 1883. Between 1907 and 1916, ten libraries were built with funds from the Andrew Carnegie Trust. Several of these Carnegie libraries continue to be used by the public library; one, the original Central Reference Library, is now the Koffler Student Centre at the University of Toronto.
Henry Cummings Campbell was Chief Librarian of the Toronto Public Library from 1956 to 1978, and the first Chief Librarian to hold a professional library degree. He is credited for having contributed to the expansion of the library and its adaptation to an increasingly dynamic and multicultural city.
Prior to the Amalgamation of Toronto in 1998, each of the former municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto operated their own public libraries. They include:
When the Government of Ontario amalgamated the former municipalities of Metropolitan Toronto, the individual library boards and the Toronto Reference Library merged into the Toronto Public Library. The merger caused the Toronto Public Library to become the largest library system in North America, serving a population of 2.3 million people with 98 branches at the time.
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