All summer long, we will be offering you forays into libraries across Quebec to discover their little-known treasures, on unusual themes. This week, the library of the new Sanaaq center, which will open in 2025.
In the vast borough of Ville-Marie, between Saint-Laurent Boulevard and the affluent enclave of Westmount, the City of Montreal does not have a public library.
It is in the middle of this area, on the site of the former Montreal Children’s Hospital, near Atwater station, that the new Sanaaq community and cultural centre, and its multilingual open-space library, are to be built in the spring of 2025.
Multicultural like the population of the neighbourhood, the Peter-McGill district, this library of the future should also be the embodiment of the third place, a meeting place as much as a place of reflection, a place of learning as of citizen power. People will come there to read, but also to participate in sports, cultural or culinary activities.
“This is the first mixed centre in the city of Montreal,” explains Marie Houde, section head, culture and community, at the City of Montreal. She will be the one to manage the Sanaaq centre when it opens. “What this means is that we are bringing together the library component, but also the cultural component, under one roof, through a cultural centre. There are spaces for the community, activities too, in addition to sports and leisure. It’s quite new for the city to have, in one place, an integrated offering of all these components.”
The concept of the third place was popularized in the 1980s by American sociologist Ray Oldenburg, and initially referred to a place to socialize between home and work. But today, American urban planner Richard Florida speaks of new libraries as real “social infrastructures” where to “reknit” the American social fabric after the rupture caused by COVID-19. The libraries of the future, multifunctional, multicultural, welcome all citizens, from the homeless to business leaders.
You can sit on the floor, eat and chat, sew and cook, or use 3D printers, all in open-plan spaces, with the exception of certain areas that are reserved for study and silence.
“There are examples like the Helsinki library in Finland, or even in the Netherlands. It looks a lot like the center we’re going to build,” explains Jessie Fontaine, head of the library at the future center. “There’s a media lab, a museum lab, there are exhibition rooms, there are also performance halls and multifunctional rooms. We’re really following a global trend with this center. We’re catching up.”
The library of the future Sanaaq center will also have a “digital signature.” Tablets, laptops and video game consoles will be available for borrowing. “The goal is to give everyone access to digital material, which is less accessible for some people, with the aim of reducing the digital divide,” adds Jessie Fontaine. 60% of the content of the Sanaaq center will be available in physical format, compared to 40% in digital format.
Citizen participation
But it is the local clientele that will determine the direction of the Sanaaq centre, as well as its library. Discussion groups with the communities will be held there regularly “so that they can share their needs on an ongoing basis,” says Marie Houde. The neighbourhood’s citizens will be able to discuss the collection, the programming, the code of life as well as the occupation of the spaces.
“Every library tries to have books that fit the community they serve,” Fontaine says.
Home to several indigenous cultures on its territory, the Peter-McGill district is very socially diverse. The Sanaaq centre also has the mission of representing it.
Already, there are plans to hold a collection of 780 indigenous works there, designed with the participation of Daniel Sioui, of the Hannenorak bookstore and publishing house, located in Wendake. There will also be two good collections of works intended for the Chinese and Iranian populations, who are very present in the neighborhood.
“Everything written by Indigenous authors from Quebec, they have in their collection,” says Daniel Sioui. However, books published only in Indigenous languages are rare. Hannenorak publishing sometimes publishes bilingual or trilingual editions, mainly in the children’s book section, intended for teaching in schools. However, Indigenous people are publishing more and more books, notes the bookseller and publisher. “We are realizing that as Indigenous people, we also have the right to have a voice, and to tell our story.”
A symbolic name
The name of the centre, Sanaaq, is the title of a novel written by Inuit woman Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk in the 1950s, one of whose goals was to explain the Inuit world to white missionaries. “We want to pay tribute to a woman who was a pioneer,” says Marie Houde.
As we know, just a stone’s throw from the future centre, Cabot Square is a gathering place for members of Montreal’s Inuit population, who are very attached to the neighbourhood.
“The root of the word “sanaaq”, stanameans “to make,” she continues. There is the idea of creation by hand.” It is a symbolic name, she says, because the center is intended to be a place of creation and learning.
The Sanaaq Centre library will also house a collection of bilingual or trilingual Chinese-language books so that children can read them with their parents. “We have Mandarin, Cantonese and Wu,” continues Jessie Fontaine. The selection of this collection of 750 books was made in collaboration with the Centre d’aide à la famille chinoise du Grand Montréal. A librarian of Chinese origin also participated in the development of the corpus, which includes books for adults, children, fiction and essays.
The third cultural community with a strong presence in the Peter-McGill district is the Iranian community. “For the Farsi collection, it’s a little different,” says Jessie Fontaine. Since there were no authorized bookstores that sold these books in Montreal, they had to go and get them abroad. This collection, put together in collaboration with a Montreal bookseller, includes 180 documents. The Sanaaq centre will occupy more than 5,500 square metres on two floors. Despite substantial cost overruns, the goal of opening in spring 2025 seems to be maintained. It’s a date.