University of Toronto libraries have been ranked third in the Association of Research Libraries’ Library Investment Index, just behind Harvard and Yale.
After a fire destroyed all but 100 books at the University’s original library in University College in 1890, U of T was forced to rebuild its libraries with donations from all across the Commonwealth. The result is what chief librarian Larry Alford calls an “extraordinary collections which has been built over several generations.”
Currently, U of T has 12 million books housed in 44 libraries. Alford is planning to prioritize easy access to the collection: his goal is to “figure out how to preserve the digital record of our present, which will become the history and how people understand history 100 years from now.”
With files from the Toronto Star
