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After Bernice Walker resigned in June 1967, John North was hired as Centennial's second Head Librarian. Coming from the Cooperative Book Centre that had supplied Centennial with materials from Oct. 1966 to spring of 1967, Mr. North was already familiar with the library's collection. He pushed to expand the library’s offerings beyond books, and prioritized purchasing audio-visual materials to show students that non-print learning resources were also available.
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Under its Chief Librarian, William Ready, McMaster University provided the first collections of books to the newly formed Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology. This operation moved in Oct. 1967 to what was then known as Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. The book collection work was completed by March 31, 1968.
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Through Telex, Centennial College users could borrow books from the entire Scarborough Public Library system.
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After the complete book holdings were transferred to computer disc, an automated system using punch cards and a card reader replaces the manual card-catalogue system by the early 1970s.
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The college purchased and outfitted a Volkswagen van for $4000 to run a mobile book service to former satellite campuses with no staffed libraries of their own. The Mobile Resources Van made daily trips to students at the St. Augustine’s, Birchmount, Scarborough Regional School of Nursing, and Wellesley campuses.
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After John North left Centennial in spring of 1972 for Mount Royal College in Calgary, Betty Hanafi took over as Head Librarian, planning the development of new Ashtonbee campus library.
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Frances Davidson-Arnott helped establish a library for the Progress Campus opening in 1977, and continued in her role as Director until 1986.
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In this article, Candice Hermack outlines how Centennial College library technicians Irene Pojaujis and Jean Harding fought for pay equity. Female-dominated library technicians had a different job classification, and correspondingly lower pay, than other comparably skilled, male-dominated technician employee categories.
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To coincide with Centennial's tenth anniversary, the Resource Centre hired Outreach Librarian Julia Matthews to raise its profile among students, staff, and faculty. She organized events including open houses, special displays, a noontime concert, speaker Stephen Lewis, and a Resource Centre film festival that screened Straw Dogs, Barbarella, Reefer Madness, The Harder They Come, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Harold & Maude, and others.
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In an article in the student newspaper Asylum, author Sandy Cooke details how microfiche readers have replaced the previous card catalogue system. As Cooke explains, “Microfiche means ‘small page’ and the system is based on reducing normal size cards to tiny images on plastic sheets.” Users could look for a book’s location and availability by title, author, or subject. Once any initial confusion was overcome, microfiche was seen as easier to use than the card catalogue method.
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As the pictured brochure notes, "All-in-all, a new campus to provide a super convenient, interesting and pleasant student lifestyle in an excellent learning environment."
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Our libraries were second only to Ryerson to adopt the DOBIS/LIBIS online computer library system. This system made searching for a book's location much more efficient, and was also used for circulation and cataloguing.
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The former Ontario Teacher Education College opened in the fall of 1979 as Centennial's East York campus, offering its students a new library with ample natural light as well as an outdoor courtyard.
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A burst water pipe damaged books, furniture, and carpeting at the Warden Woods Library on February 7, 1982. Library facilities were closed for two and a half weeks. Staff had to pack up and move 35,000 titles to allow for clean-up work and carpet replacement.
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After participating in 1980 field trials, Centennial Libraries offered access to this Canadian-developed “videotex” service where users could look up news, government information, tourism sites, hotel and theatre listings and other facts from a central server. Data displayed on a television screen using a Telidon adapter, telephone line and keypad. Creators forecast that this internet forerunner would have implications for electronic mail and long-distance education in the future.
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Libraries offer online searching, or "Computer Assisted Reference," in December 1982, but it's very different from the searching we know today. To use the Commodore PET and modem-based system, the patron had to consult with the Reference Librarian about whether an online search was suitable, then complete a Search Application Form and pay a $10.00 deposit. With database, long distance, and offline printing charges, an average search could cost between $10.00 to $40.00 1982 dollars!
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After several years of service as a Librarian, Annetta Protain assumed the role of Executive Director. In 1994, she was appointed Director of the Bibliocentre, and later served as Director of Policy and Planning in the President’s Office until her retirement in May 2001.
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The Libraries (then known as "Resource Centres") publish their first Newsletter on January 22, 1988. Although Librarians had access to the college's PROFS electronic mail system by the mid-1980s, these newsletters were a crucial form of staff communication prior to email's widespread availability in more recent years.
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According to the June 3, 1988 newsletter, library staff had to send out 1000 manual request letters asking for business information and annual reports from individual companies. Compare that to the ease of searching an online business database today.
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Excerpt: “Centennial’s four Resource Centres are central to the education process in the College. We are dynamic combinations of people, collections, equipment and physical facilities. The Resource Centres assist the College community as a whole, including students, faculty and administration, in the process of transforming information into knowledge. Resource Centre services and collections have a direct impact on the quality and character of the College.”
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On March 7, 1990 the Progress Resource Centre opened a public CD-ROM terminal, allowing users to search journal and magazine indexes. In demonstrations, staff explain how one CD-ROM holds the equivalent of 1500 floppy discs worth of information. This buzzed-about technology formed an intermediate step between manual periodical index searching and the arrival of online databses.
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In 1972, the first Learning Centre branched off from the earlier Study Services department, established to improve students’ academic and study skills. Learning Centre services continued under various forms until the Nov. 1988 Student Retention Project recommended a more centralized approach. By Sept. 1993, the Learning Centres began reporting to the Director of the Resource Centres. Demand has increased steadily for the Learning Centres’ free peer tutoring services.
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Centennial Libraries relied on an honour system and goodwill towards other students to promote returns until relatively late in its operational history. By 1994, however, the Learning/Resource Centre's Continuous Improvement Committee felt fines were necessary to ensure more equitable access to materials, falling in line with most other GTA community colleges.
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In 2004, Janice Hayes received the National Outstanding College Librarian of the Year award.
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Authors of the 1995 Visioning Day document, Learning and Resource Centres: Meeting the Challenges of Tomorrow, Today write of the shift from print to electronic sources: "The new librarian will have to become a navigator, organizer, researcher, packager - an information specialist who is able to market information to their users. No longer will librarians be viewed simply as information custodians" (14).
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When using their newly available internet connections to answer reference questions, a Resource Centre Newsletter writer noted staff were "trying to stay one step ahead of the students."
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According to the November 1998 policy, patrons had to turn off cell phones and pagers in the Libraries due to noise complaints. Any visitor to the Libraries today would clearly see that this policy is no longer in effect.
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In the Learning and Resource Centres' May 2000 Visioning Document, "2005: Delivering the Future Today," staff forecast that, "To a significant extent, the future of Centennial College's LRCs will be based on our level of commitment to technology. How we keep pace with the technological evolution will largely determine our ability to remain relevant and vital to the people we serve" (18).
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John and Molly Pollock donated their extensive collection of resources about the Holocaust to Centennial College Libraries. With over 1200 books, newspaper and magazine articles, reference works, and audiovisual materials, the Pollocks wanted students, teachers, and community members to have access to these significant historical materials about the Holocaust, racism, and propaganda.
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The Centennial Science and Technology Centre, otherwise known as Morningside Campus, opens in the summer of 2004, allowing the College to close its long-serving Warden Woods Campus.
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The Libraries launch their laptop loan program, helping to lessen the impact of access barriers to technology. This popular program continues to serve students today.
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Centennial Libraries host The Human Library event, which allows participants to check out "human books," and learn from these individuals' life experiences. This project aims to counter prejudice through face-to-face conversations among people who might not otherwise meet. The Libraries hosted The Human Library again in 2012.
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This 103,500 square foot building created new space for studying, collaboration, and learning with its library, lecture theatre and 22 new classrooms. The Library and Academic Facility's four-storey green wall also contributed to its Gold Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.
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As part one of the Ashtonbee Campus Renewal Project, the 40,500-square-foot Library building has won an Award of Honour for Excellence - New Building from the Society for College and University Planning (SCUP), as well as the Canadian Institute of Steel Construction's Award of Merit.
