Our reproduction service lets you order prints of historical images of Toronto and beyond — all from Toronto Public Library’s collections. Many of these images can be explored on our Digital Archive. Our Digital Archive has over 160,000 digitized items. These include historical maps, photos, paintings, posters, drawings and ephemera... Continue reading

In 2015, to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the new Toronto City Hall, Toronto Public Library's (TPL) Special Collections and Preservation & Digitization departments created a website to explore the many architectural contributions to this international design competition. Eero Saarinen and Ernesto Rogers, judges for the City Hall and Square... Continue reading

A lot has been happening in 2018 with the Digital Archive and we wanted to provide an update. The Digital Archive features items from TPL's Special Collections and content from it may be downloaded, shared and reproduced in print or electronic format for personal, educational, and research use. Not only... Continue reading

2021 update: Sidewalk Labs has stopped supporting OldTO and the map is unavailable. Try our interactive map of Toronto neighbourhoods to explore digitized items from TPL. Close to 4,000 images from the Toronto Public Library's Digital Archive have been added to the #OldTO website at https://oldto.sidewalklabs.com/. OldTO Website Earlier this... Continue reading

**The Game Jam has been postponed until early Fall 2018. Please check back for the most up-to-date information and thank you for your interest!** Do you like board games? Do you like video games? Do you enjoy Canadian trivia? Have you ever wanted to help make a game but didn't... Continue reading

In 2017, the Preservation & Digitization Department at the Toronto Reference Library has been busy digitizing more content for the public to research, view, download and enjoy. Items include maps, ephemera, photographs and full books. In terms of just page numbers alone, staff have digitized well over 215,000 pages! We... Continue reading

Toronto's first peek at the $100,000 sculpture was obtained when Star photographer Boris Spremo sprawled at Nathan Phillips Square and stuck his camera inside the protective case, 1966 Boris Spremo was a news photographer, born on October 20, 1935, in Susak, Yugoslavia and died yesterday in Toronto, Ontario, at the... Continue reading

The Canadian National Exhibition (CNE), Canada's largest fair was originally known as the Toronto Industrial Exhibition. Its name was changed to the Canadian National Exhibition in 1912. At that time, the hope was to better reflect the scope of this always diverse fair. Since its inception, the CNE has featured... Continue reading

Sam the Record Man. Photo by Eric. Student Learning Centre. Photo by Eric. Can you believe it's already been 10 years since the closure of Sam the Record Man's flagship store on Yonge Street? The iconic building with its rotating neon record platters was eventually replaced by Ryerson University's Student... Continue reading

Canada’s sesquicentennial celebrations are in full swing. If you're feeling nostalgic about this great city we live in and you've already made it to Harbourfront to check out the giant rubber ducky this weekend, here are some interesting stories about Toronto that you may not know about. Did you know... Continue reading

Canada’s sesquicentennial is just around the corner, and Toronto Public Library has a feast of programming to help you celebrate our 150th anniversary. Whatever your interest, the Library has something for you and your family. Destination Canada is an exhibition which tells the immigrant experience in Canada, from the earliest... Continue reading

Toronto Public Library's Preservation & Digitization Department has been digitizing Ontario-related content from our Special Collections for many years. You can access this content via the Virtual Reference Library or TPL's Digital Archive. What types of materials can I research and discover in the digitized collections? We have a treasure... Continue reading

The Vice & Virtue show, currently on display at the TD Gallery, incorporates some hidden augmented reality elements throughout the space to enhance your gallery experience. The app used to display these elements is call Aurasma. What is Aurasma? Aurasma is a free app for iOS and Android devices that... Continue reading

Did you know the Toronto Reference Library has a vinyl record collection of around 15,000 titles that you can listen to at our vinyl listening stations in the Arts Department on the 5th floor? Now you can browse some of this collection at Discogs.com. Discogs, short for discographies, "is the... Continue reading

Professional conservators are responsible for mounting Special Collections items displayed in the TD Gallery. The gallery is on your right as you enter the Toronto Reference Library at 789 Yonge Street. Our current show, Once Upon A Time, features fairy tales from the Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books. Conservators... Continue reading

Toronto Public Library's digitization program has reached an important milestone: the Digital Archive now contains over 100,000 Special Collections objects for your use. We will feature more Digital Archive content in upcoming blog posts, but below are some examples of the types of materials you will find within this growing... Continue reading

If you are interested in learning how to create some augmented reality (AR) content for free, you might be very interested in looking at Aurasma, a simple app and web-based studio application that’s fun and easy to use. What is Aurasma? Aurasma is an augmented reality platform created by HP... Continue reading

Ever since it opened in the 1880s, the Toronto Public Library has been commited to maintaining and preserving our cultural heritage. TPL’s Special Collections Centre holds many valuable historic items about our city, our province, and our country. Preserving old documents, books, paintings and photographs is both a science and... Continue reading

(Notice of closure Oct. 3, 2011) The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, the Toronto Public Library's collection of materials devoted to Sherlock Holmes and his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, has been open to the public since 1971. Since then the collection's unique setting in a Victorian-style room evoking Holmes and... Continue reading

As part of the revitalization program at the Toronto Reference Library, a number of collections have to be moved due to construction and there will be some service disruptions: For the week of Sept. 19, items in the TRL Stacks in the following dewey areas are not available: 658.83793 R26... Continue reading