A new life for Carnegie Library
Advertisement
The Winnipeg archives are coming home.
On Oct. 17, the City of Winnipeg announced that a redevelopment project for Carnegie Library had begun — one which will transform it once again into the home of the City of Winnipeg archives.
The building has been vacant since 2013 following substantial rain damage. It will be repaired and renovated to make way for the return of the City of Winnipeg’s archives, which it had housed since 1977.
Carnegie Library (380 William Ave.), which turned 120 years old on the date the project was announced, was the first public library in the city — predating unicity amalgamation by over 70 years. The words “free for all” are etched above the front door, indicative of the building’s purpose in the past and soon-to-be future.
The creation of unicity in 1972 — which united the old City of Winnipeg with 11 surrounding cities and municipalities — was the reason the library assumed archival storage duty. When the former cities of St. Boniface and Vital, for example, ceased to exist, so did their governance, and their archives were packed up and sent to the Carnegie Library for safe storage and easy access, owing to its central and accessible location.
The building functioned as a library — the William Avenue branch of the Winnipeg Public Library — as well as an archival space for over a decade, but housing the city archives became its sole purpose in 1994.
Since the Carnegie Library’s untimely closure in 2013, Winnipeg’s archives have been housed at a temporary location at 50 Myrtle Ave., which has seen considerably less traffic, according to senior archivist Sarah Ramsden. What was once thousands of research visits a year have dwindled to about 200.
Ramsden said there are many reasons to be excited about the Carnegie Library’s impending revival, such as a climate-controlled vault to help conserve fragile records and more space, which will allow room for growth.
“I’m excited to hold more records we’ve had to turn away in the past,” Ramsden said.
As well, there will be more public access, such as map drawers available for the public to sift through at their leisure, even while they wait for an archivist to find something for them in a different area.
“We do have to strike that balance between preservation and access,” Ramsden said. “Unlike a library, a lot of our records are one-of-a-kind.”
City archives include everything from building permits to bylaws, time capsules to art, and archives of content relating to specific subjects such as the work and speeches of former mayor Susan Thompson and local music history compiled by Owen Clark.
Photo by Emma Honeybun
An original sketch of the Carnegie Library, designed by architect Sam Hooper — one of eight original designs created for consideration by the contractors tasked to build the structure 120 years ago. The Carnegie Library was the first public library in Winnipeg — funded by a grant from Andrew Carnegie, who funded over 2,500 libraries worldwide. It currently sits vacant, but will be renovated and is projected to reopen in 2027.
“We want to make it a welcoming space,” she added. “An interpretive space, where people can explore history and share history.”
The new space’s multi-purpose room will provide space for classroom use and exhibits — hosted by the City as well as outside sources — and a place for more than one person to engage with the archives at one time, which the current space on Myrtle Avenue cannot provide.
“I think the Carnegie Library has always been more than a building,” she said. “It has this long legacy of serving the community … and we’re honoured to build on that legacy.”
“It’s not only about history, it’s about memory and identity, and the archives are essentially our living memory and something we need to look back on.”
The City of Winnipeg has some archives available for viewing online through the Winnipeg In Focus project, which can be accessed at atom-winnipeg-new.accesstomemory.org