2025 marks a major milestone in the history of the Milton Public Library. There has been a library in town since 1855, which means the institution has, in one form or another, been serving the community for 170 years.
“I was shocked to learn that the Milton Public Library is older than the Town of Milton,” Chief Library and CEO Sarah Douglas-Murray told MiltonToday, who's gearing up for the milestone's celebration on Saturday, Jan. 25 at the Main Branch. “There always has been a lot of support for literacy, reading and education in the Milton community. Which is why, in 1855, they started the Mechanics Institute.”
In many ways, the library has stayed the same in its more than a century and a half history. Books still line the walls. Perhaps paradoxically, an unspoken buzz continues to permeate the quiet interior of MPL’s three branches. The ever-helpful librarians guide patrons through the many services.
But it differs in many others. The modernist design of the three locations, perhaps best exemplified by the Sherwood Branch, breaks from the more dour aesthetic in the popular imagination. The new MPL services would likely feel foreign to the librarians of yesteryear, perhaps expressing confusion at terms like “library of things,” wi-fi as well as puzzlement as to why the institution sells honey.
But what would unite staff and patrons of both eras is the understanding that the library is a community-oriented organization where people can learn on equal footing.
“We want to be welcoming and I think that is a big shift that has happened in libraries. Libraries certainly are seen more and more as that third place where, yes, you can work. But you can also, gather and socialize,” said Douglas-Murray.
A third place, as she alluded to, is one purely designed for developing relationships. A first place is one’s home and a second place is where someone goes to develop as a person like work or school.
MPL of today and 170 years ago are united in one crucial way, population growth and the demand for learning that creates. As Milton began to take shape in the 1820s, the town was a rather rustic place more akin to a village than a major municipality. But then as now, the population grew rapidly.
With that growth came recognition, especially when in 1853 Milton was designated a county town. With that, major government services began springing up in the burgeoning municipality, attracting many members of the upper crust.
“Now all of sudden, we were getting judiciary people like judges and lawyers and so on coming to town. We were also getting the administration for the county coming to Milton. So all of a sudden, by 1855, there was this influx of the reading class,” said local historian John McDonald.
As this was the time of the temperance movement, a Protestant initiative to discourage the consumption of alcohol, a library was also seen as a bulwark against vice. The Mechanics Institute was seen as a way to, according to its first president Dr. Gardner, to attract people “by pleasurable as well as profitable society away from the haunts of drunkenness and vice.”
Whatever their reasons, the need for a library became self-evident, triggering several benefactors to create the aforementioned Mechanics Institute and Library Association (MILA). Milton now had a new third place where people could go to learn and enjoy.
MILA likely (but not confirmed) started in a private home, and served in the community in a number of well-known buildings. The Old Town Hall – located at 251 Main St. E and now hosts the Milton BIA – was one such location. Another was just across the street at 264 Main St. E, where the Smile Lounge Dentistry now operates.
45 Bruce St., where the Portico Community Church is, would transition to the Main Branch at 1010 Main St. E.
The modern library was forced, once again, to meet the developing needs of a growing population. The “fastest growing town in Canada” moniker meant that Town of Milton's services needed to rise to meet the accompanying needs.
Two new branches followed as well as a modernization of services. “We have grown our ‘library of things’ collection, which is things like tools and park passes. The use of those has also been increasing exponentially,” Douglas-Murray said.
The MPL will be celebrating the milestone on Jan. 25 at the Main Branch.
The festivities will begin at 1 p.m. McDonald will also be hosting a chat on the history of arts and culture in Milton in days of yore called The Show Must Go On. The lecture begins at 7 p.m. on Jan. 22 at the Main Branch. Details on the library website.
For more information about the MPL and its services, visit BeInspired.ca.