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Bridging the Years
The need to rebuild
W
hile the library world was racing onto the
information highway, little had been done to
make Westmount's library even road worthy. By
1982, when the library acquired its first personal
computer, neglect over the past decade had left it
barely able to handle such up-to-date equipment.
"Every time someone plugged in the electric
kettle the PC went out," recalls Rosemary Lydon,
later to become chief librarian. "It was impossible to
modernize with the facilities we had."
The building was bursting at the seams. Rain
leaked through the roof into buckets and oozed
through the foundation to soak material stored in
the basement. Every nook and cranny was
crammed. More work space and even washrooms
were needed. Where would one put the new audio
cassettes? The large-print books? And the expanding
French collection? What about space for audio-
visual material, computers or other needs of the
21st century?
Urgent repairs, update and expansion — not to
mention political will in an era of financial con-
straint •—proved even more challenging than
building a library from scratch. What had taken two
years to conceive and build in 1899, would take
eight to renew a century later.
The first efforts to expand the library and
renovate existing facilities began at the level of
library workers and the Public Library Committee
(trustees) in the mid 1980s. How and when it
would be undertaken lay in the hands of three
city councils under mayors Brian Gallery (1983-
1987), May Cutler (1987-1991) and Peter Trent
(1991-1995).
When the subject of library expansion was
broached at the council level during the Gallery
years, recalls former councillor Sally Aitken, it was
quickly dismissed in the face of soaring contribu-
tions to the Montreal Urban Community and other
priorities. Mrs. Aitken, who also sat on the Library
Committee from 1983-1991, was privy to discus-
sions by both groups.
Says John Shingler, who also served on both the
city council and library committee: "1 think it was
clear there was a need for refurbishing the library in
terms of acquisitions, numbers of newspapers and
magazines and the way they could be displayed and
read. It was clear our facilities and security needed
upgrading but it seemed evident there were not the
resources and that the city council did not
have the political will."
With the acquisition of audio and video
cassettes, space limitations became a pressing
concern and a public meeting was held by the
library November 7, 1985, to discuss its changing
role in meeting the increasing demands for elec-
tronic and research materials. To prepare for the
meeting, a group of concerned citizens and repre-
sentatives of the Library Committee toured other
municipal libraries in sister suburbs.
Examination of the library's evolving role came
on the heels of efforts by the chief librarian to
obtain plans for building a small addition. The
somewhat daring move went nowhere, Mrs. Aitken
says. The preliminary plans, submitted to her by the
city's architect September 12, 1985, proposed
pushing out the back wall of the library to create
desperately-needed work space. The change would
free-up the original 1911 children's library that was
divided into offices in 1959.
While Rosemary Lydon's plan "dissolved
in politics," Mrs. Aitken says, "we (the library
trustees) were pleased she had taken the initiative."
When the city's three-year capital works
budget for 1986-1988 was adopted at the end of
1985, it contained a $300,000 provision earmarked
for "expansion of the library" in 1987. It was short-
lived hope. Extracts from the Library Committee
minutes of October 16, 1986, read: "The Members
of the Committee were of the opinion that an
extension had become necessary and that a pro-
posal for its construction should be made by the
Library Committee to the Council."
It never came to pass as recorded in the
minutes only a month later: "An extension to the
Library would not be carried out in 1987, but an
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