[URBAN NOTE] On the vinyl record collections of the Toronto Public Library

[rfmcdonald]

Brad Wheeler's recent article in The Globe and Mail, "There’s a vinyl gold mine in Toronto’s library stacks", takes a look at the institution's excellent collection of vinyl records. I do so need to get there.

On the fifth floor of the Toronto Reference Library, an older woman sits at a listening station that comes equipped with headphones and a record player. But she’s not grooving to Glenn Gould or hearing Coleman Hawkins. Her coat and scarf are bundled atop the turntable. She’s reading Baudelaire, and the corner of the library that holds a who-knew collection of 14,995 LPs is the quietest spot she could ever find.

But that could change. Last month, the library – on Yonge St. near Bloor St., a stone’s throw away from the long-gone but accurately named Incredible Record Store – held an event called Vinyl 101, an introduction into the rabbit-hole world of record collecting and turntable love. It was well attended, populated by an earnest mix of novices and fanatics, young and old, men and women, and vinyl nerds and those who wish to be.

At a panel of experts – a DJ, a librarian, a hardcore record collector and a hi-fi store rep – they lobbed a steady volley of questions: What’s better, a belt-drive turntable or a direct-drive one? How best to clean vinyl? What’s the deal with 78s?

Organizers of Vinyl 101 hope it was the first in a series of events that will not only educate music lovers on listening the analog way but illuminate the public on the library’s impressive hold of vinyl LPs.

“We’re trying to expand our audience,” says Eric Schwab, the library’s manager of digitization, preservation and arts. “A lot of the young people don’t know about the resources we have.”