 Famous Canadians
To the left is Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865), one of the first major Canadian authors.
 The Toronto Public Library, located in downtown Toronto, is the largest public library system in Canada and the second busiest (by number of visits) in the world after the Hong Kong Public Library. Established as the library of the York Mechanics' Institute in 1830, the Toronto Public Library now consists of 99 branch libraries and has over 11 million items in its collection.
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 The Arthur Conan Doyle Collection at the TPL is one of the world's foremost collections of library materials devoted to the life and work of Arthur Conan Doyle. Much of the collection, of course, is devoted to Doyle's most famous character, Sherlock Holmes. The Collection is housed in a room evoking 221B Baker Street, where people can browse along open shelves in a manner unusual in a special collection.
 The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy at the TPL is a non-circulating research collection of over 68,000 items of science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction, as well as magic realism, experimental writing and some materials in 'fringe' areas such as parapsychology, UFOs and Atlantean legends.
 The Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books began as a
bequest of British librarian, Edgar Osborne, to Toronto Public Library's Boys and Girls House branch in 1949 of some 2,000 rare and notable children's books. It has since grown to over 80,000 rare and notable modern children's books.
 The Lillian H. Smith Collection at TPL was established in 1962 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the inauguration of children's libraries in Toronto. It comprises creative books of literary and artistic merit, published in English since 1910, including picture books, fairy tales, fiction and poetry.
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