The Toronto Public Library (TPL) board has appointed a special selection committee to hire a replacement for Vickery Bowles, the city’s top librarian who announced her retirement last week.
By the time Bowles steps down as city librarian in mid-2025, she will have been at the library’s helm for a decade.
TPL highlighted Bowles’ achievements while in the role, including overseeing the expansion of library hours and eliminating overdue fines.
She also spearheaded the library’s effort to revamp several branch buildings, added e-books and audiobooks to its collection, and undertook Indigenous placemaking initiatives at TPL branches — part of a strategy in response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action.
However, Bowles’ tenure was not without controversy.
In 2019, she was at the centre of a high-profile free speech battle.
TPL faced protests for renting an event space to Meghan Murphy, an activist whose public statements were criticized as transphobic hate speech by several Toronto authors and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
In the lead up to the controversial event, Bowles defended the library’s duty to allow speech of all kinds in its buildings.
“Sometimes ... when you're defending free speech, you're in a very uncomfortable position where you're defending perspectives and ideas and viewpoints that many in the community, or a few in the community, whatever, find offensive,” she told a CBC program at the time.
“But it's at that time that it's most important to stand up for free speech,” Bowles added. “That is what makes Canada a democratic country, and that is what we need today more than ever.”
In the press release about her retirement, TPL praised Bowles for championing intellectual freedom, which it described as “every individual’s right to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction.”
Bowles was also in the city’s top librarian position during the ransomware attack that downed TPL’s website for three months, from late October 2023 until the end of this January.
The attack severely limited the services the library could provide during that period and stranded one million books in truck storage that could not be reshelved until the system was back up and running.
“I know TPL will continue to adapt its services to meet the changing needs of future generations while remaining true to its core mission: providing free and equitable access to services in a welcoming and supportive environment,” Bowles said in the press release.
The city librarian is responsible for the day-to-day administration of the library and its staff. According to the Sunshine List, Bowles earned $270,800 last year.
