The Doucette Library of Teaching Resources is the successor to a long series of libraries that have supported the preparation of teachers in Calgary for over 100 years. In 1906, in recognition of an immense need for teachers in the growing new province, Alberta’s provincial government established a teacher training institution – the Alberta Normal School – in Calgary. By 1908 they were ensconced in a grand new building (now the MacDougall Centre) designed specifically for the school. It had space on the second floor for a library, and in 1909 Miss Helen F. Mason was hired to be both stenographer and run the library. (Photo courtesy of the Calgary Public Library, Local History Collection)
By the early 1920s the school had outgrown this building, even though two other Normal Schools now existed in t
he province, and in 1922 the Calgary Normal School moved into an imposing red brick gothic structure situated on 123 acres of land on the brow of the North Hill. It was to share this building with the Institute of Technology (now the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology). The institutions each occupied a different wing of the building, with the library located up 52 steps in the Centre Tower between them. The library, and the librarian, were both shared ‘facilities.’ The library was now run by Isabella Currie, who had some professional training as a librarian, thanks to summer school courses in the States. She handwrote titles of the library’s holdings in “Accession Registers” which show that by November 1927 the library held 4,750 books. (Photo courtesy of the Calgary Public Library, Local History Collection)
The outbreak of World War II forced another change of location for the Nor
mal School and its library, when the Air Force took over their building for a Wireless Training School. The Normal School moved into King Edward School, while the Technology part of the Institute made do in the Grandstand Buildings of the Calgary Stampede. The library, too, split – most of it went to King Edward, some went with the Tech programs, and some of the collection was later described as having been “buried” in the Institute.
In 1942 Isabel Currie retired after many years service and Mary Isabella Grant, more commonly known as ‘Belle’, took her place. She came to the job with an Education degree from Columbia University and she later took a leave-of-absence to get her Bachelor of Library Science degree. She inherited a collection now numbering about 8,000 volumes, and oversaw the library’s move back to its former quarters at the end of the war. But now she reported to the Chief Librarian of the University of Alberta, since Alberta had become the first province to move all teacher training to the university. The Normal School had become the Calgary branch of the Faculty of Education of the University of Alberta.
By the early 1950s the demands upon the library began to change and expand, as first year of Arts and Science degrees were offered in Calgary. Additional new faculties changed the whole nature of the institution and in 1957 its name became the University of Alberta in Calgary. By the time Grant resigned in 1957, the collection had grown to 20,000, with only about one third of the holdings in the field of Education. Her successor, Dorothy Ryder, came with a mandate not only to supervise a library that had greatly outgrown its physical facilities, but to plan for a new library on a new campus, because the university had finally obtained land of its own. On August 16th, 1960, the library began its two-and-a-half day move over to the new campus, using the services of fifty high school students and two vans.
The library moved into a temporary 12,000 square foot facility in the basement of the Arts and Education building, one of only two buildings which had been completed. The next few years were exceedingly busy as, in the midst of vastly expending collections and staff, Ryder was also planning a new library building, which opened in August 1963, occupying 60,000 sq ft of space on three floors.
Shortly thereafter, in 1964, the Faculty of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction, increasingly frustrated that the promised ‘curriculum laboratory’ was not a priority for the University Library, set up its own Materials Centre and took back from the University Library some 3,000 – 4,000 school texts, children’s books, pamphlets and pictures. A large collection of 856 filmstrips was quickly added to the collection, establishing that this library would house a wide diversity of formats.
Kay Snow's appointment to the Faculty may have been an additional incentive for the establishment of what became known as the “Ed C.I. Materials Centre”. Snow had formerly worked for the Calgary School Board library service and she’d been hired by the Faculty of Education to develop a course in School Libraries, which came to have immense impact on the development of exemplary school libraries in Calgary in the ensuing two decades. She envisioned the Materials Centre as a kind of model school library and the focus was on purchasing materials suitable for use by children.
However Snow was too busy to undertake the day-to-day running of the Materials Centre. In 1964, the Curriculum and Instruction Department hired an outside consultant, Mohan Sharma, to prepare a report about the
future of the Centre. Sharma proposed an ambitious, and expensive, growth plan which was out of budgetary reach but which, nevertheless, was sufficiently implemented that by September, 1969 the staff consisted of 4 full time librarians, 5 supporting staff members, 1 clerk and other part-time cataloguers and student assistants. By July 1970 the Materials Centre holdings numbered 20,000 books and over 8,200 AV items. By that time they had moved into the Education Tower, which had been completed in 1968.
During the 1970s, a decade that was difficult for the whole Faculty, budgetary retrenchments caused the Centre to experience somewhat of a struggle for survival. The materials budget was drastically decreased , hours of opening reduced, and staffing levels declined – there were only 1 ¾ professional librarians by the late seventies. Lack of space required the collection to be spread into different rooms over two different floors in the Tower.
Strong lea
dership was important in ensuring the continuance of the Centre. In 1977 Dr. Philomena (Phil) Hauck was appointed Director. She came from the school library community and was the co-author, with Kay Snow, of the book The Media Centre in the Secondary School. She already had an MEd. in Curriculum & Instruction and went on to obtain a doctorate. Her vision of the Materials Centre stressed not only the unique nature of its collections but also its strong instructional role. . In 1977 the Centre stopped being associated with only one department and became simply the Education Materials Centre.
During the next two decades, the Faculty remained very supportive of the Centre. In 1980 the Centre moved to the third floor of the Education Classroom Block, into a space that allowed the whole collection to be pulled together. Automation and the cooperation of the University Library created efficiencies that compensated for declining numbers of staff. David Brown joined the staff in 1980 and proved to have an interest and ability in technology that served the Centre well. His Children’s Literature Web Guide became internationally renowned. As Director from 1989 -2002, he also took over responsibility for the Faculty’s technology support services which led to the integration of library and technology services when the Centre was remodeled in 2000.
The Centre had already been renamed in 1994, becoming the Douce
tte Library of Teaching Resources, in honour of former Education Faculty member and Normal School Instructor, Dr Andrew Doucette, first Director of the Calgary Branch of the University of Alberta. The name change also reflected a changed of focus for the library, as it evolved to become less a ‘curriculum laboratory,’ and more an undergraduate library for all teacher preparation students. This evolution was accelerated and demanded by radical changes in the teacher education program, which in 1998 changed to a two-year, after-degree BEd Master of Teaching Program that was inquiry-based and field-oriented.
The new program 
required different kind of classroom facilities and most of the third floor of the Education Block was remodeled to provide small classrooms suitable for seminar discussions. Adjacent to them a beautiful new library facility took shape, with a seamless integration of technology and library resources. In this space, the library continues its tradition of offering a rich collection of resources in every imaginable format that could be useful for teaching, providing strong informational and instructional services, and creating a welcoming atmosphere for teacher-preparation students.
In April 2010, the Doucette Library 'came full circle', when the Faculty of Education and Libraries and Cultural Resources signed an agreement that made the Doucette LIbrary a branch library within the University Library system.
For more information see: Brydges, B. (2009). A Century of Library Support for Teacher Education in Calgary. Education Libraries, 32 (1), 4-11.
BB, July 2008
