We live in a fast-paced technological age where companies often sink or swim based on their ability to adapt to change. In their determination to deal with the uncertainty, business owners constantly seek information: What will be the next big product? How will businesses adapt to the latest generation of workers? Who will be Canada's next […]
James Esson was one of a small number of Canadian photographers to produce stereoscopic views, a popular format for photographs in the late 19th century. Here are some of his architectural stereo views of Toronto, currently on display in Special Collections. Can you guess where the following pictures were taken? You'll […]
September 5th will be celebrated as Labour Day across Canada. To commemorate this national holiday, the Special Collections Centre has arranged an exhibit of photographs and printed ephemera related to Ontario's labour history. Here's a sampling from the exhibit which can be viewed on the 4th floor of the Toronto Reference Library until the end of […]
Brewing is one of Toronto's earliest and most successful businesses. From two of Toronto's first breweries, Joseph Bloor Brewery and John Severn Brewery, both established in the 1830s in Yorkville, brewing has grown and diversified to include not only the traditional big business operations, but also craft and microbreweries. This month's exhibit in Special Collections […]
Caleb's crossing is narrated by Bethia Mayfield who is a clever and devout but questioning twelve year old when the story begins. She is the daughter of a Puritan minister on Martha's Vineyard in the 1650's. Bethia is luckier than most girls because she is at least literate but her only source of further instruction […]
Sophia FitzOsborne (aka Princess Sophie) is more Paperbag Princess than girly vision in pink. She lives on the tiny island kingdom of Montmaray located somewhere in the Bay of Biscay. The inhabitants of the once prosperous kingdom are reduced to Sophie, her sister Henry, her cousin Veronica, her uncle the (increasingly mad) King, and a […]
In The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett the Queen is transformed by reading. The corgis get away from her one day and run barking around the bookmobile which is parked behind the palace kitchens. The Queen, always polite, goes in to apologize for the racket and then feels obliged to borrow a book. Soon she's […]
Are you having trouble remembering the title of that book you'd like to recommend? Are you always being asked for novels set in the First World War or compiling a book lists for programs. Using one of the social networking sites for readers can help you keep track of what you've read, what you'd like […]
I have a twelve year old niece (aka Mrs. Bieber)and I can't imagine what she would do if she discovered that she had won a contest to meet her idol but her mother hid the letter so she never got to go. That is the terrible, terrible thing that Petra Williams' mother does in I […]
"I wish I had died before I loved anyone else" Ernest Hemingway said of his first wife Hadley. Literary geniuses don't make good husbands but they do make for wonderfully bittersweet love stories. The Paris Wife is the fictionalized story of their marriage and their years in Paris from Hadley's point of view. She was […]