The McPherson Library, considered to be the heart of the University of Victoria, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
“When the library opened on the new campus in 1964, three years before Expo 67 and five years before the moon landing, it was truly the heart of the campus,” says Jonathan Bengtson, the university librarian.
“The function of the library at the time was simple — to acquire books and journals for researchers and to provide study spaces and guidance to students,” he says. “Sixty years later, this essential core of the library has not changed, yet the university library is now so much more.”
Through the years, the McPherson Library has been a gathering place for students, researchers and members of the community.
The library, one of the first buildings on the campus, was critical to the transformation of Victoria College into a full-fledged university.
It was named for Thomas Shanks McPherson, who built businesses including the Pantages Theatre, now part of McPherson Playhouse.
When McPherson died in 1962, he left a total of $4 million to the City of Victoria, the Salvation Army, the YM/YWCA, Christ Church Cathedral and other community organizations, including Victoria College.
McPherson believed the “single most important factor in the progress of a city” was the growth of a university, so he gave $2.25 million to the college to help it become a university. The library that bears his name cost $1.4 million.
His was not the first gift to the university, which has enjoyed strong community support since the very beginning. Before McPherson died, civic leaders had already raised $2.2 million, inspired in part by the promise that W.A.C. Bennett’s Social Credit government would match what they raised.
The money enabled the university to buy land from the federal government and the Hudson’s Bay Company. UVic became the first university in the province to pay for its property and pay for its first buildings, as well.
By 1964, the new buildings on the campus were the Clearihue and Elliott buildings, student housing and the student union building, and the library — the largest and most distinctive of the new buildings, conveniently placed between the Clearihue and Elliott buildings.
The library’s cornerstone was laid in a ceremony in July 1963. Lt.-Gov. George Pearkes did the official duties, and when he was finished, he declared to those who gathered that “this stone is well and truly laid.”
It was ready for occupancy in August 1964, when 150,000 books were moved from the Ewing Building at the old college site — today, we call it the Lansdowne campus of Camosun College — to the McPherson Library. It took 10 days to complete the move.
The nice new location wasn’t popular with all students. Those taking classes at the old campus had to take a shuttle bus to use the library.
But when they got there, the library was hard to miss. Not only was it the largest building on campus, but its exterior had a notable feature: white pre-cast relief panels designed by Vancouver sculptor George A. Norris. These panels, which remain in place, are meant to show daily university life.
Unlike most other university libraries of the day, the UVic library had open stacks, which meant anyone could browse through the books. Those books saw plenty of use as the institution went from 1,000 college students in 1960 to 4,000 university students in 1967.
That year, the library unveiled its plans for a computer system. Each evening, the day’s punched-card record of loans and returns would be fed into the computer. The next morning, the library would have an updated record of who had what, along with computer-printed overdue notices to send out.
Still to come was a data-retrieval system that would give students lists of books and periodicals in response to a general request.
By 1971, the library had reached 500,000 volumes in its collection and 155 staff members, and was bursting at the seams. Expansion was in order, and the building was doubled in size between 1972 and 1974.
The expansion meant the library was able to offer accommodation on its upper levels for various academic and administrative units, such as the faculty of law.
By 1982, the library’s collection had reached one million volumes, with nearly 1.5 million items in microform. A decade later, the library was pushing into the electronic age, offering more than 100 online databases, covering all disciplines, as well as easy access to CD-ROMs.
By 2000, the library had started a virtual reference service, with real-time online assistance so students and faculty could get help without visiting the reference desk in person.
Since then, the move to a digital world has continued, which raises the question: Is the McPherson Library still as relevant as it was then?
Absolutely yes, says university librarian Bengtson.
“Students still pass through the doors of McPherson Library in droves, now more than a million times a year, seeking materials for class, studying with friends, and obtaining the support they need for their academic success,” he says.
A major factor in the library’s evolution to the digital world is a man who was instrumental in the early days. As one of the leading supporters of a university in Victoria, William Clark Mearns worked tirelessly to assemble the land needed for the campus.
Trained as an electrical engineer, Mearns started his career as a meter reader at sa国际传媒 Electric, stayed with the corporation when it became sa国际传媒 Hydro, and was the executive director in charge of the construction of the W.A.C. Bennett Dam in the 1960s.
Mearns died in 1998. A few years later, his family donated $5 million to the university library, and with another expansion of the building, the William C. Mearns Centre for Learning came into being.
While the expansion in the 1970s was to create more room for books, the latest expansion was to create more room for people and services. The Mearns centre offers integrated access to traditional material and new electronic formats and provides a home for the university’s archives and special collections.
At the Mearns centre, students can get help with writing and math, reference and instruction sessions by librarians on class assignments and digital literacy, introductions to software and technology by library staff, experiential learning through the library’s historic computing and hand-press printing press labs, supportive technology rooms for accessible learning, de-stressing and wellness events through the year, and much more.
Bengtson, who is only the third person to run the library, after Dean Halliwell and Marnie Swanson, says the centre allows the library to be part of the expanding, interconnected global information network that is being driven by the evolution from analog to digital knowledge creation and access.
“Faculty, students, and the community still borrow physical books to the tune of tens of thousands a year, yet they now access the vast majority of research through the library’s digital subscriptions to the tune of millions and millions of downloads a year,” Bengtson says.
He says sites such as Google appear to offer free distribution of knowledge and information, but much of global research is only accessible through subscriptions via university libraries, or made available through the concerted, collective efforts of libraries to negotiate with vendors.
Bengtson says university libraries work with researchers on grant-funded projects, and provide guidance and services for data management, digital preservation, digitization and emerging technologies. These libraries are also the leading edge of the transformation in teaching and research made possible by artificial intelligence.
“While the role of the library within the university continues to evolve and expand, and much of the work is online, the importance of the physical place has not lessened,” Bengtson says.
“Indeed, it has become ever more important in strengthening the sense of community and supporting the academic success of UVic students.”
The public is welcome at a special event celebrating the 60th birthday of the McPherson Library, to be held in the library from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday. There will be free hot chocolate, cookies, giveaways, button-making, special activities, and a live DJ from CFUV throughout the day.
By the numbers
As of March 2024, UVic provides access to:
- 1,547,218 physical titles
- 2,575,646 electronic titles
- 141,678 journals
- 969 databases
- 295 electronic textbooks for current UVic courses, saving students more than $650,000 in textbook costs
From April 2023 to March 2024, UVic had:
- 744,681 visitors to William C. Mearns Centre for Learning / McPherson Library
- 30,696 study-room bookings
- 1,883 open study seats
- 94,377 log-ins to computer workstations
- 214,429 transactions at the Ask Us Desk
- 1,224,534 visitors to the library website
- 1,520,605 searches in Primo, the library’s main search tool
Dave Obee, editor and publisher of the sa国际传媒, is the author of The Library Book: A Century of Service to British Columbia, published by the sa国际传媒 Library Association in 2011. He is an honorary librarian and archivist at UVic.
Special thanks to Lara Wilson, director, special collections and university archivist, and communications officer Lisa Abram.
