From the archives of the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library:
Before websites and social media, Saultites looked to their local newspaper for information about their community. From the early days, the public library made use of this medium to provide information to its patrons and encourage others to become members.
On November 25th, 1909, a column entitled New Books appeared in The Sault Star, detailing the ‘just added’ books at the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library. This column was an early precursor to the Book Shelf column that would appear decades later, offering a cross-section of new and recently added books to be found on the shelves of the public library.
The 1909 column listed books under categories like Voyages and Travels, History, and Juvenile. Some of the new books adorning the shelves of the 1909 library included: On Tour With Troddles by R. Andom, Dame Curtsey’s Guessing Contests by Ellye Howell Glover, and one of my personal favourites, Anne of Avonlea by L. M. Montgomery.
In 1937, the column Soo Library Shelf briefly appeared in The Sault Star.
The February 25th column seems to have been born of necessity due to exasperation with a recurring inquiry. The column began: “Which book comes next in the Forsyte Saga? To answer this almost daily query the library has prepared a list of Mr. Galsworthy’s series, and from that went on to a complete list of series, sequels and triologies.” The column lists not only the books of the aforementioned Forsyte Saga, but also many different series and chronicles that they believed “would repay reading,” including the iconic Bounty trilogy: Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea, and Pitcairns Island. One hopes the publishing of the column cut down on the number of times the librarian was forced to field questions about Mr. Galsworthy’s books.
A few years after the Soo Library Shelf column was run in The Sault Star, the library’s The Book Shelf column began. The column used colourful phrasing and later, tiny images depicting characters engaged in ‘adventure,’ ‘mysteries,’ or activities pertinent to the time of year (like raking leaves) to entice the reader to peruse the new books on offer. A 1950 column described itself as a “hint list for the week.”
The column was designed, first and foremost, to give the reader a quick rundown of new books that may be of interest. Like the January 14th, 1949, column asked: “What’s on the ‘books’ this week at the Library?” Readers of The Sault Star could find out by browsing the column. The column was also handy for readers on the go, who may have been too busy to search the shelves of the library for reading material.
On April Fools’ Day, 1943, The Book Shelf column touted their new shipment of “fine books by popular authors.”
The writer posited that “perhaps you will find here the book you have been meaning to read for a long time in order to complete the sequence of a favourite author’s works.”
On this particular date in 1943, under the heading of Romance, Faith Baldwin’s newest book Wife vs Secretary was highlighted. One has to wonder if this was a slightly tongue-in-cheek April
Fool’s Day suggestion for a romance read! The Northern Adventure category listed the release of Jack London’s new novel Call of the Wild, which some of you may be familiar with. The column ended with the enticing category of ‘Books in Demand’ headed up by the novel Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther.
Other interesting introductions to the Book Shelf Column included “again this week, new non-fiction reading is suggested for your time of pleasure and profit” on October 22nd, 1948.
The introduction on October 8th of the same year left me slightly puzzled: ‘It’s perfect weather for curling up in a chair in front of the fireplace with a couple of good books and four apples.” I’m not sure what the significance is of four apples or if it was simply a bit of whimsy on the part of the librarian. Would three apples have sufficed?
The authors of the columns exercised their clever writing skills to take what could have been dreary pieces and make them witty and enticing. However, there were occasional columns that could make the reader feel as though they were standing in front of the stereotypical stern-faced librarian with a bun in her hair and glasses perched on her nose through which she peered at you while, with a scolding tone, shushed you.
Case in point, the September 30th, 1949, column began by asking, “are you in a reading rut so deep that you are not able to see books for the best-sellers? Are you too rushed, or too lazy of mind to take the time to really choose a book, or are you the open-minded man or woman who gets the utmost from the service by using the Library both as a university and a playhouse? Take a long second-look at your Library, and at yourself as a reader.”
The Book Shelf column was also occasionally geared towards a central theme.
On March 25th, 1943, the column was titled “Library Displays Gardening Books-VEGETABLES, VITAL FOR VICTORY IS NEW V PROGRAM.” The three V war effort, and the idea that every gardener, amateur or expert, could help the war effort, no matter how small their yield, inspired the library to help in the best way a library could: with books. The Book Shelf column on that day provided a list of books that were on display in the library, both new gardening books and ‘the old ones that have proven their practical value…’
The Book Shelf column in April of 1943 was titled ‘Angler’s Prayer 1943 Version’ and began with a poem:
Oh, grant me grace to get the gas
That Tom and Bill and I
Can hie us to the lake again
With rod and reel and fly.”
The column went on to recommend many books about fishing and finished up with a couple of recommendations focused on woodcraft, because, as the librarian whimsically noted, it might be good to know before you take to the woods in search of that “lake just full of trout about two hills back and over a little to the east’ …You may spend the day threshing wildly along deer trails, stumbling over fallen logs, and wading knee-deep in lily-pads, to find yourself back under the same tree in the same hollow in the hills at nightfall with nary a trout in sight… and home in any direction….”
January 28th, 1937, found the Soo Library Shelf column devoted entirely to “a vitally important phase of present-day industry and transportation…the Diesel engine.” The column consisted of a plethora of book suggestions that the librarian believed “expert, amateur and handyman will find… of special interest.”
The March 16th, 1951, column featured “thrilling fiction on historical themes” and included suggestions such as That Enchantress by Doris Leslie, a “thrilling tale of Queen Anne’s court.” An earlier March column advised readers that “tense, stirring novels and fascinating non-fiction books are just the tickets to fill in long March evenings.”
A column appearing in the November 8th, 1949, newspaper was written in conjunction with Young Canada’s Book Week. The Sault Ste. Marie Juvenile Libraries released a list of recently published children’s books taken from the list of Books for Young Canada.
One of the more interesting aspects of the column is the vehement push against what the author refers to as “cheap reading.” The librarian writes in the column that it purports to “encourage the reading of worthwhile books by more children, to remind adults of the importance of a child’s contact with the best books...” The column continues in reference to the list of books they are promoting that it is “worthy of careful study by parents who frequently do not realize that one good book in the hands of a child is worth half a dozen poor ones. The battle against worthless books has taken many forms, but by far the most effective means of combat is substitution. To forbid cheap reading is to foster the desire for it.”
On July 21st, 1966, The Book Shelf column was written by librarian Mrs. Kay (Katherine) Punch and rather than listing new available books, it posited the question: WHAT IS A LIBRARY? For Mrs. Punch, “the library is a world - just as a hospital is a world, a school is a world, and a paper mill and steel plant are worlds - the library world differs from all the others because it contains, within the walls, something of the others.”
Mrs. Punch was the Adult Services Librarian at the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library for 42 years, as well as a local history specialist and author of many published articles. Punch goes on to describe library staff as “the instruments” for the flow of knowledge and information through books to library patrons.
“The library is no small ivory-tower isolated place,” says Punch. “It is an outgoing community service, designed to fulfill the needs of every citizen in this city of Sault Ste. Marie.” Most importantly, as Mrs. Punch concluded at the end of the Book Shelf column, the library “strengthens understanding throughout the various levels of society. It projects into outer space and back into history. Used to its full value, the library helps to make every citizen a better, more tolerant and wiser human being….”
The library column, while used to promote new books, was also used to teach readers about the library itself and the resources available to patrons, and to encourage the public to come into the library and see for themselves the multitude of worlds awaiting them on the shelves. As a 1949 The Book Shelf column concluded: “The library of today is a free Public Library. Your card of admission as a citizen of Sault Ste. Marie is obtained by the simple process of signing your name to an application blank… Then, whether you want to study philosophy, make better doughnuts, build a house, value an old coin or just plain relax with a good story, there is a book on the shelves written especially for you.”
Each week, the Sault Ste. Marie Public Library and its Archives provide SooToday readers with a glimpse of the city’s past.
Find out more of what the Public Library has to offer at www.ssmpl.ca and look for more "Remember This?" columns here.