You made a HUGE impact in 2015 

Donors like you supported all of these programs, services, collections and spaces in 2015. You help TPL remain vibrant and relevant for all Torontonians. Thank you!

• Aboriginal Collection
• Accessibility equipment
• After School Clubs
• Asian Heritage Month
• Peter J. Bassnett Award for Professional Development
• Black History Month celebrations and collections
• Bluma Lecture
• Bookbash
• Bookmobiles
• Cutting Edge Lecture
• Dial-a-Story
• Digital Innovation Hubs
• Elementary School Outreach
• Family Literacy Day
• Home Library Service
• Great Reads booklet for children
• Green programming
• Healthcare collection
• Innovators in Residence
• June Callwood Lecture
• KidsStops Early Literacy Centres
• Leading to Reading
• Pauline Hinch Memorial Award for Staff Development
• Poetry Slam
• Pop-Up Learning Labs
• Puppetry collection
• Reach Out and Read
• Sophie's Studio programming
• Summer Camp Programming
• Sun Life Financial Museum + Arts Pass (MAP)
• Sun Life Financial MAP Family Saturdays
• Storytime Outreach
• TD Gallery
• TD Summer Reading Club for Kids
• TPL Teens
• Young Voices
• Youth Hubs

TD Bank reaches $10 million milestone

For more than 20 years, TD Bank Group has generously supported Toronto Public Library and last year their cumulative giving reached $10 million!  

TD supports many programs and services, but its biggest impact has been the TD Summer Reading Club. Since 2004, the program has encouraged more than 2.5 million new readers nationally, while championing Canadian writers and illustrators. In 2015, TD pledged an astonishing $2,600,000 to support TD Summer Reading Clubs across Canada for three more years.

Mayor John Tory and the Toronto Blue Jays mascot kicked off the 2015 TD Summer Reading Club.

Keeping Toronto’s bookmobiles on the road

We are extremely grateful to The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation for their ongoing support of the library's bookmobiles and Home Library Service. Last year the Foundation donated $100,000, enabling the library to replace one bookmobile in summer 2016 and the other in 2017.

The bookmobiles stop at community centres, shopping plazas, apartment complexes and family shelters, bringing the library to thousands of people who may not otherwise visit a branch.

The library's two bookmobiles are generously funded by The Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation.

Reach Out and Read at St. Michael's Hospital

St. Michael’s Hospital and Toronto Public Library launched Reach Out and Read to promote reading with children during the first five years of life, when 90 per cent of brain development occurs. 

At regular well-child checkups, physicians and nurse practitioners talk to parents about the importance of reading aloud to their children. Each child gets a book at every visit and waiting rooms are stocked with books for preschoolers. 

Thanks to donors, 4,000 families received a kit that includes the resource guide Let’s Get Ready for Reading. 

The Krembil Foundation supports healthcare education at TPL

Thanks to a very generous donation of $250,000 from the Krembil Foundation, Toronto Public Library now offers The Cutting Edge, an annual lecture series on health and health technologies. This remarkable gift also enriches the specialized ​health collections at Toronto Reference Library and North York Central Library and provides for staff training in health literacy, so that Toronto’s librarians can guide people to the most reliable and up-to-date sources of health information.

Tickets for the 2016 Cutting Edge Lecture, It's All About You: Siddhartha Mukherjee and Personalized Medicine, become available September 19.

Chris Eliasmith, creator of Spaun, the world’s largest simulation of a functioning brain, spoke at the inaugural Cutting Edge lecture.

Pop-Up Learning Lab brings emerging technology to more people

To address the increasing demand for Digital Innovation Hub programming, in 2015 the library introduced a new mobile Pop-Up Learning Lab (PULL) that travels from branch to branch, bringing emerging technology to more people.

The pilot program was made possible thanks to a $10,000 donation from The George Cedric Metcalf Charitable Foundation. This has been a hugely popular initiative. There are now four Pop-Up Learning Labs touring the city and three more will be up and running by the end of 2016. 

The Book Lover’s Ball celebrates its tenth anniversary 

More than 600 people attended the spectacular tenth anniversary of The Book Lover’s Ball, held at the Toronto Reference Library for the first time. The unforgettable evening showcased the new spaces made possible by donor support and raised $560,000 for TPL. See photos on our facebook page.

Guests and authors dined in the stacks at the 2015 Book Lover's Ball. 

You can read the full Toronto Public Library 2015 Annual Report on our website.