Ryerson University has gained a slice of Canadian literary history after a donation of thousands of historical books and documents – collectively worth $1 million – from publisher McGraw-Hill Education.

The donated collection, which includes more than 3,000 books published from the 1860s to 1970 and over 2,000 documents including author contracts and letters, is the largest single donation to Ryerson’s library to date. The material is all from defunct Canadian publisher Ryerson Press, which was bought by McGraw-Hill in 1970 and shares a namesake with the university –Ontario educator and Methodist minister Egerton Ryerson.

“This is a very eclectic collection that can go in all kinds of different ways – history students, Canadian history students, church history students … just studies about the social times up to the 1970s and then people interested in publishing as well,” Ryerson chief librarian Madeleine Lefebvre told the Star.

“It’s got value in the sheer range of what’s in the collection, so seeing it all in one place gives it a lot of added value to the researcher, I think.”

Among the collection, which arrived at the university about a week ago and ranges from science textbooks to biographies to contemporary fiction, are a first-edition print of Canadian author Alice Munro’s first book, Dance of the Happy Shades, early releases of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables and cook books from the 1950s featuring recipes that rely heavily on mayonnaise and aspics. The oldest piece in the collection is a Methodist Church pamphlet published in 1862.

Lefebvre said McGraw-Hill had contacted the Ryerson library more than two years ago about making the donation.

McGraw-Hill’s long-standing relationship with Ryerson’s library was also part of the reason why the university was chosen to receive the donation, the publisher’s North America managing director Aaron Yaverski told the Star on the phone from New York City. The material had long been held in McGraw-Hill’s own archive in Whitby, largely out of the public view.

“We were looking for a home for that collection that not only could house it … but also a university that was going to make sure that the collection was fully available to scholars to study and to make sure it stayed part of Canadian history,” Yaverski said. “So it’s not that other universities didn’t fit that bill as well, but the long-standing relationship we’ve had with Ryerson made that sort of a fit and a good home for the collection.”

He added that a donation like this was a “fairly unique” move for the publisher, and described the contents of the collection as a “phenomenal representation of Canadian publishing history.”

“I’m very excited that it’s found a phenomenal home at Ryerson University and I’m happy that it will now be exposed to many more people to appreciate and study,” Yaverski said.

Ryerson Archives and Special Collections staff has just started to unpack and catalogue all the material, Ryerson librarian Val Lem said, a process that’s expected to take weeks, if not months, to complete. Once that’s done, it will be stored by the Ryerson Archives and Special Collections department, Lem said – the books and documents won’t be in general circulation, but students and staff will be able to access them in a special room on the fourth floor of Ryerson’s library building.

“As a slice of publishing history, it represents a form of publishing industry where they … made a significant effort to support Canadian writers, both historians, academics, children’s writers, poets, huge scope and breadth of Canadian cultural writing,” he said.

Correction – April 19, 2017: This article was edited from a previous version that incorrectly stated the McGraw-Hill’s donation was triggered by the publisher closing its Canadian office. In fact,McGraw-Hill is not, and was not, planning to close its office in Canada. Incorrect information was provided to the Star.

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