25 Years, 25 Stories | 02: The ACT Library
In the 1980’s, during the first few years of Toronto’s AIDS epidemic, very little was known about HIV/AIDS or its treatment — even among medical professionals.
As a result, the first people to collect and disseminate information about HIV/AIDS were the people living with and affected by it. The library started out as a collection of a few books, pamphlets, notes, and anecdotes based largely on the first-hand experiences of HIV-positive people and activists. Recognizing the need to harness this growing body of knowledge, ACT launched Canada’s first publicly accessibly HIV/AIDS library in 1987, under the helm of Resource Centre Coordinator John Dunham and later, in the early 1990’s, Mark Rabnett.
“When I first began volunteering at ACT,” says former Community Information Librarian Bill Jeffery, “so little was known about the epidemic and everyone was desperate for whatever information might be available. [People] were looking for anything they could use to keep themselves healthy, and many were looking to educate their doctors because their medical training had not directly prepared them to deal with HIV/AIDS.”
Remembers Rabnett: “I worked regularly with the ACT staff on education programs, supplying information, writing brochures, sitting on committees, doing some counselling. Roles were not strictly defined in those days. The staff in AIDS Support, particularly when understaffed or in “People are Dying!” mode, would bring clearly devastated clients to the library and leave them in my hands. Naturally, I had to drop everything to attend to their needs, which were usually not for the latest statistics on the epidemic.”
Now one of the largest resources of its kind in North America, the ACT library showcases the vast and important contributions that activists, researchers, and people living with HIV/AIDS have made to the fight against the epidemic. Even today, the spirit of self-empowerment informs the work of the library and the culture of HIV-positive people.
ACT board member, client, and library volunteer Tony King remembers his own education about HIV/AIDS when he was diagnosed in 1996: “As nice as my doctors were, their answers were either too scientific or too dumbed-down. I wanted to make informed decisions about my health, so I read everything I could get my hands on. Now I’m very happy when I can help other people to empower themselves this way.”
With so much information and so many treatment options now available, the role of the library has expanded from one of information gathering and dissemination to include curatorship.
“My job is to make sure the books, posters, videos — everything in our collection — is relevant to our clients and to researchers. So we’re constantly weeding out materials and adding new things. But it goes beyond that. We’re also looking for ways to make finding information fast, easy, and habit-forming,” says Erica Lee, ACT’s Current Librarian.
Over the past four years, Lee has helped launch CONNECT (www.hivinfovih.ca), a joint online catalogue of four Canadian HIV/AIDS libraries, developed an HIV/AIDS thesaurus, and presented abstracts about her work at conferences. She and her library volunteers spend much of their time working with clients and researchers to make sure they find the information they need.
“I like that I get to connect people to new ideas, new perspectives, and new ways of living better with HIV/AIDS.”
To honour the library’s 20 years of service to the community, a special library open house was held on Wednesday, September 24 at 399 Church Street, fourth floor, from 5 - 8 p.m. The open house included a tour, a timeline, presentations and refreshments.
View the ACT Library tinmeline.
View the Library Open House presentation.