Photography exhibition shows extensive history of P.E.I.'s many libraries
CBC
Prince Edward Island has 25 libraries, and photographer Doug Dumais has explored all of them.
Circulations, his exhibition at the Charlottetown Library Learning Centre, shines a spotlight on some of the Island's smaller libraries.
He says he set up for a few hours in each one, photographing the spaces and talking with the librarians about their histories.
The project started because Dumais wanted to find out how P.E.I. ended up with so many libraries in such a small place.
"The Carnegie Corporation of New York was doing these pilot projects of rural libraries," Dumais said in a recent interview with Island Morning's Laura Chapin.
"So there was a plan of putting libraries all across the United States, and they wanted kind of a nice space that they could test out these regional libraries."
That space was Prince Edward Island.
In 1933, the corporation hired a librarian named Nora Bateson from McGill University. Her job was to set up a regional library system over three years.
"She would go to these communities and talk to women's organizations, and kind of garner support for libraries," Dumais said.
He says a lot of these libraries she helped set up at the beginning were in people's homes, or in available spaces in the communities.
"She would drive around to the small communities with a very early car. You can imagine in the '30s, that she modified [the car] to hold 300 books," said Dumais.
When Bateson started, there were three libraries on P.E.I. By the end of the three years, there were 22.
When she published her report on the project, it showed that people were taking out thousands of books over a period of several months, making the program a resounding success.
