A few days after the Mount Pleasant Library visit, I walked from the Eaton Centre to Ossington and Bloor, taking in three libraries along the way.

The first library I visited that day was Urban Affairs inside Metro City Hall. A blue and green banner alerted me to its presence, and I walked up a short flight of stairs into the quiet.

Judging from its silence and spaciousness, this branch was clearly more of a research than a community library (although there were lots of helpful leaflets about community events strewn about the tops of cabinets). With Urban Affair’s special Toronto Collection, microfilm machines, law and legislation section, and stacks of urban-themed magazines and journals, it reminded me of a time in my life when I was consumed with postgraduate research. (I used to spend hours in the University of Glasgow Library and other research libraries in Edinburgh, Leeds, and Cambidge when I was writing a Ph.D. thesis about Edmund Gosse’s Father and Son).

I admired Urban Affairs’ extra-wide tables, four appealing study rooms, meeting room, and the view of the busy intersection of John and Wellington. A few sleepers could be discovered face down in their papers, their breathing only mildly affecting the hush that was sometimes broken by the rustle of turning pages and the tapping of keyboards.

It was slightly disorienting to be in a Toronto library with no movie section, no ESL shelves, no storytelling schedules or librarians trying to herd patrons into a single line. The no-nonsense atmosphere didn’t encourage me to linger, but I was very sad when Urban Affairs closed in 2011. I would have liked to have had the chance to take some photographs of this serene branch.

The next two libraries I saw on my 2008 walking tour, Sanderson and College/Shaw, had very different vibes from Urban Affairs. Please click on the name-links in the previous sentence to see updated posts of these two branches!

Four years ago, I paid my first visit to Mount Pleasant branch after an afternoon in Leaside munching Montreal bagels with my husband. Mount Pleasant is tucked between a row of shops on the street that shares its name.

It’s a small venue, rectangle in shape, with cream-colored bricks on the outside. Very tall shelves — both free-standing and attached to the walls — claim the majority of the space. A wide aisle right in the middle of the rectangle allows patrons to settle on chairs covered in gray plastic to read the latest magazines and newspapers. On my most recent visit, the chairs had turned a mottled dark blue.

The most unique feature of the Mount Pleasant branch is a wedge-shaped window seat in the children’s section that provides a carpeted perch for readers to observe the sidewalk scene. On my first trip to this branch, a very large brown stuffed bear was demonstrating how window-seat-sitting is done, having established himself in the secure corner where the southeast wall met the window. Over the bear’s head but closer to the entrance were some kites with their tails dangling from the ceiling.

We didn’t stay long in 2008 because we only had about twenty minutes of parking on the meter, but when I returned yesterday I had time to take a few pictures of the alley behind the library.

I left the rain-soaked alley with in a state of quiet contentment, enjoying the sound of the water rushing to the drain and thinking of the dry storefront library I had just enjoyed re-visiting. And just a few blocks north, a French bakery awaited!