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Lillian Helena Smith was the first Canadian and the first children's librarian
to win the American Library Association's Clarence Day Award. She became
interested in the profession after reading an article on the Training School at
the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. She graduated from Victoria College,
University of Toronto in 1910 and went to study under
Effie Louise Power in
Pittsburgh. A year later, she accepted a position under
Anne Carroll Moore
at the New York Public Library. She was only in that job three weeks
before she was promoted to head of the children's room in one of the
branches. She made one last major move the following year; this time she
accepted a position at the Toronto Public Library. Ten years after
returning to Toronto, she moved the children's collection from an alcove in the
main library to the new Boys and
Girls House of the Toronto Public library located on the main floor of a Victorian house.
She specifically designed the space so that children would think it was
inviting. In her practice, she also emphasized outreach programs that
maintained mini-collections of books in schools, hospitals, and settlement
houses. Throughout her career, she also lectured at University of Toronto's library school.
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