Quebec’s oldest municipal library in Westmount celebrates 125th anniversary

One of the first library buildings in Canada and Quebec’s oldest municipal library is celebrating its 125th anniversary year.

Westmount Public Library opened in 1899 and it has significantly evolved from offering just newspapers, periodicals, and books.

Today, library users can also borrow movies and music, check out its special collection of postcards, or participate in one of its book clubs, film screenings, or one of its many activities for both adults and children such as knitting and painting. 

“What makes it special? I mean, so many things. The amount of people that use us, we have close to a thousand people a day,” said Anne-Marie Lacombe, the director of Westmount Public Library and Community Events.

“We’re this dynamic community hub. And to have an author talk, and to have book clubs, and to have story times, but also activities outside the box.”

Mayor of Westmount, Christina Smith added, “It’s such a great way for parents to connect, for kids to connect. And it’s their first experience for kids like that, that’s the first sort of connection they have with their city.” 

The building itself has also changed over the years with a major renovation completed in 1995 that restored much of its original Victorian-inspired design. The Westmount Public Library was also the first public library in Quebec to connect to the Internet in 1994.

The Children’s section opened in 1911 and in 2013 a new teen section was unveiled.

“It’s a standalone public library in the middle of the park. And it’s been from here since 1899. You’ve got the adjacent greenhouse, which is incredible and very visited. And we get a lot of questions about the greenhouse. The library is connected to the greenhouse,” said Lacombe. 

The Westmount Public Library began its 125th-year celebrations earlier this month, but there are still a number of other events planned including a big event on June 9th.

“We don’t make a lot of noise usually at the library, but on that day we’ll have musicians. You know, there’s going to be lots of surprises. So that one is the biggest birthday party because it’s in the June anniversary month,” said Lacombe.

This library is not only celebrating its history this year but there are also plans to add a maker space that will provide multi-media technologies to make podcasts and other audio-visual projects for future generations.

“We’re extremely excited. And for this space, we’ll have an animator who will work with the teens notably, but we’ll plan events for adults as well, activities for adults.”

Smith adding, “I hope that citizens for, you know, generations and generations to come love it as much as our citizens today and those in the past and that we continue to make sure that it offers the programming that citizens want, that residents want.”