Toronto Reference Library - Special Collections

Special Collections

Among the special collections at the Toronto Reference Library are:

• The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, devoted to the life and works of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, is housed in a room built to look like Holmes's study at 221B Baker St.
• The Baldwin Room, a collection of books, pamphlets, periodicals, manuscripts, broadsides and printed ephemera, maps, newspapers and historical pictures relating to Upper Canada (now Ontario) and to early Toronto. This collection is named for Robert Baldwin, a leading political reformer in Upper Canada and pre-Confederation Premier. However it also includes a Canadian historical picture collection illustrating the history of Canada, originally donated to the library in 1910 by John Ross Robertson (1841–1918), founder and publisher of the Toronto Telegram and a major philanthropist of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, which now contains thousands of historical paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and postcards.
• The Genealogy and Local History Collection, whose strength is Canadian content but which also includes numerous resources for Great Britain, Ireland and the United States (particularly the northeastern states).
• The Map Collection of current and historical maps, atlases, gazetteers and cartography resources is international in scope. Some of the resources it includes are: maps of Toronto from 1788 to the present, Toronto fire insurance plans and Goad maps and atlases, as well as current and retrospective topographic and photo maps of the Toronto area.
• The Art Room containing rare books, photographs, posters and manuscripts, including important costume design and sheet music collections.

The library also has an extensive performing arts collection, including papers and information on many Canadian artists, such as Al Waxman and The Dumbells. Some of the materials in this collection are available online.