Home

New Endowment to Expand Kelly Library’s Special Collections for Generations

Feb 18, 2026 by jessica

Kelly Library News

A new endowment created by the Friends of the Kelly Library (FOTKL) to support the acquisition of rare and important materials will enhance the student experience while also serving as a lasting testament to the dedication of some of St. Michael’s hardest-working volunteers.

The Friends announced at their recent general meeting that they have committed $100,000 to create the Special Collections Acquisitions Endowment Fund. Funds will be gifted after the 2026 book sale as part of a legacy initiative connected to the University’s 175th anniversary in 2027, says James Roussain, who is the William D. Sharpe Chief Librarian and Director of Special Collections at the John M. Kelly Library.

“The library is deeply grateful for the Friends’ generosity in establishing this endowment, a lasting investment that strengthens our collections and supports the Kelly Library’s students, scholars, and mission,” says Roussain.

The fund will support the acquisition of rare and distinctive materials for the library’s Special Collections: Archives and Rare Books division, enhancing undergraduate learning through works from non-Western traditions, non-traditional book forms, and materials that build on the library’s established collections.

The library’s first fund dedicated solely to supporting the acquisition of rare and important materials, the endowment will ensure that resources will be available in perpetuity to enhance and expand the collections that distinguish the Kelly Library and support faculty, students, and academic programs. All acquisitions supported through this fund will include the acknowledgement: “Acquired with the support of the Friends of the Kelly Library.”

The acquisitions will be “a means to support our programs in meaningful ways,” Roussain adds.

Funds will become available for use beginning May 1, 2027. Over time, the availability of funds will increase as the endowment continues to generate earnings. Additional donations to this endowment will gladly be accepted from willing donors.

The Friends have raised an impressive $556,903 since the book sale was launched in 2004, and a further $70,000 has been raised and will be directed to the new fund, says Liz Gilbert, who is the President of the volunteer group. This initiative represents an important milestone for the Friends and is the first permanent legacy project of this scope that they have undertaken.

“The Friends are committed to ensuring that the library continues its vital mission of supporting personal and intellectual endeavours of all those who study and work at the University of St. Michael’s College now, and in the future,” Gilbert says.

The annual fall book sale, now a tradition on campus, takes a year’s worth of preparation, with volunteers sorting donations year-round. (Up to six boxes of books can be dropped off at the Kelly’s front desk. For larger donations the library asks donors to arrange a drop-off time.) The group also hosts pop-up book sales as well as lectures, and they support various exhibitions hosted by the Kelly.

“They are not in it for the glory,” Roussain says, smiling.

This year’s sale will run from September 30 to October 3. Stay tuned for more exciting developments.

The John M. Kelly Library at the University of St. Michael’s College is celebrating the addition of the Thomas Merton Collection to its holdings with a March lecture delivered by renowned Merton scholar Dr. Michael W. Higgins.

While Merton remains known most broadly for his 1948 work, The Seven Storey Mountain, he was a multi-talented, multifaceted man, a prolific writer, poet and artist as well as a theologian and mystic who engaged in interfaith dialogue. He died in 1968 while attending a conference in Thailand.

Known in his Trappist community at Kentucky’s Abbey of Gethsemani as Father Louis, Merton remains an inspiration from cloisters and academies to literary circles and prisons, notes Dr. Higgins.

“Thomas Merton was an extraterritorial and visionary thinker, and the breadth of his intellectual range and the depth of his spirituality continue to contribute to his wide global outreach,” he says. “The fact that he has to date hundreds of theses and dissertations written on various aspects of his thought is but one marker of his durability and relevance. There has been much work done on Merton at St. Michael’s and so it is more than fitting that this Merton Collection finds a home where the plenitude of his gifts and the richness of his legacy can be both studied and treasured for ages.”

The donation of more than 500 items brings together the holdings formerly housed in the Thomas Merton Reading Room at the Vancouver School of Theology. The collection includes virtually all published works by and about Thomas Merton, along with related scholarship and audiovisual materials, including recordings of talks Merton delivered to novices at Gethsemani in the 1960s. Together, these materials document the extraordinary range of Merton’s life and thought, from Western monastic and contemplative traditions to his influential engagement with Zen Buddhism and interreligious dialogue.

“The arrival of the collection, generously donated by The Thomas Merton Society of Canada, marks a significant moment in the growth of the Kelly Library’s collections and strengthens St. Michael’s longstanding engagement with twentieth-century Catholic thought, spirituality, and culture,” notes James Roussain, William D. Sharpe Chief Librarian and Director of Special Collections at the Kelly Library. “The connection between Merton and Henri Nouwen, whose archives are held at the Kelly, offers scholars a rare opportunity to explore two deeply influential spiritual voices whose lives and writings were shaped by shared questions of contemplation, community, and social responsibility.”

The new arrivals will complement and significantly enhance the Kelly’s existing holdings of materials by and about Merton. In combination with related collections across the wider University of Toronto Libraries, the donation helps establish the University of St. Michael’s College as a compelling destination for Merton scholars and students from Canada and beyond. It also reinforces the Kelly Library’s role as a welcoming space for research that bridges theology, literature, philosophy and spiritual practice, with a collection that speaks to readers across religious traditions and to those outside formal religious frameworks altogether.

Dr. Higgins, the Basilian Distinguished Fellow of Contemporary Christian Thought at St. Michael’s, will deliver his lecture, titled Merton for Our Time: A Model of Interculturality, on March 10, 2026 at 6 p.m. in Alumni Hall 400. A reception will follow in Father Madden Hall in Carr Hall.

Dr. Higgins has been researching and writing on Merton since 1971. His 1978 doctoral dissertation on Merton and William Blake, “Thomas Merton: the Silent-Speaking Poet,” was much augmented and published in 1998 as Heretic Blood: the Spiritual Geography of Thomas Merton. He has published extensively on Merton in both peer-reviewed and general interest publications, and has researched, interviewed and narrated two CBC Ideas series on him as well as documentaries for CBC’s Celebration. He also served as the consultant for CBC’s Man Alive program, “Monk on the Run.”

He is the co-editor of Thomas Merton: Pilgrim in Process and author of Thomas Merton: Faithful Visionary and of The Unquiet Monk: Thomas Merton’s Questing Faith.

Dr. Higgins has also taught graduate courses on Merton and is Past President of both the International Thomas Merton Society headquartered at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky and of the Thomas Merton Society of Canada, headquartered in Vancouver.

Next month he will deliver lectures at Sarum College in Salisbury, England and at All Hallows College, Dublin, on the two mystics and ecological visionaries Merton and John Moriarty, as well as leading a Merton event at St. Michael’s on May 9.

He is the co-editor of Thomas Merton: Pilgrim in Process and author of Thomas Merton: Faithful Visionary and of The Unquiet Monk: Thomas Merton’s Questing Faith.

A new student-curated art exhibit in the John M. Kelly Library invites visitors to engage with the Donovan Collection in new ways. Ted Rettig in Context places works by one the collection’s most represented artists, Ted Rettig, alongside other pieces in the collection.

The pairings were selected by first-year students enrolled in the inaugural SMC One Course, “The Donovan Seminar: Visual Art and Meaning” and are accompanied by student-written curatorial statements.

Throughout the semester, students explored the relationship between art and meaning, using pieces from the Donovan Collection, which can be found all around the St. Michael’s campus, as their primary material.

“This course taught me that I need to look a little deeper and have more context to understand art and the world around me,” said Ella Doubleday, a first-year student enrolled in the Donovan Seminar. “I really appreciated how we were able to bounce ideas off of each other during the seminar and that collaboration really helped the exhibition flow nicely.”

Professor Stephen Tardif, who led the seminar, praised the students’ work, saying, “I am very proud of my students. They leaned into the seminar format of the class by collaborating and conducting high-quality research. Their hard work paid off with an exhibition that can be enjoyed by the greater community.”

The exhibit is set up in the Kelly Library Multi-Purpose Room, which also served as the seminar’s classroom.

“The students took the lead on how the art was to be displayed. In our final seminar we talked a lot about how the exhibit would flow. We explored the space together and thought carefully about the layout. It’s fitting, because we turned the classroom into a gallery space, just as the Donovan Collection turns spaces on campus into a gallery of sorts,” says Professor Tardif.

In addition to students gaining hands-on curatorial experience, the exhibit also makes the Donovan Collection more accessible to the campus community. The opening on December 4 drew students, staff, faculty, and community members, including friends of Ted Rettig.

“I hope the impressions that the students managed to create by pairing these works together will challenge and stimulate people to think, feel and experience different ideas that maybe they are not accustomed to,” said Linda Roy, a parishioner of St. Basil’s and friend of Ted Rettig who attended the opening.

One of the draws of the exhibit is witnessing the students’ curatorial choices.

“I think it’s wonderful because you really do get multiple perspectives on how these works can be viewed, interpreted and experienced. Art can touch people differently at different stages of life and here I get insight into the younger generation’s outlook. What speaks to me about this exhibit is that you don’t have to be an art major to understand why these pieces are placed together. You don’t have to be an already practicing or aspiring artist or a student of art to understand or experience the pairings,” says Alice Wong-Rettig, who is also connected to the artist and attended the exhibit opening.

The Big Maps: The Sisters of Service as Canadian Trailblazers, an exciting new exhibition coming to the John M. Kelly Library, will document the history of an unconventional and uniquely Canadian women’s religious institute whose members engaged in groundbreaking work across the country.

The Big Maps opens October 23 at 6 p.m. with a talk by Mark McGowan, Professor Emeritus of History and Celtic Studies at the University of Toronto and Principal Emeritus of St. Michael’s College, on the pioneering vision of Sister Catherine Donnelly, who founded the order, and the role of the Sisters of Service (SOS) in welcoming, housing, and teaching new Canadians from diverse cultural backgrounds.

^{photo credit: Sisters of Service Fonds, Special Collections, John M. Kelly Library, University of St. Michael’s College}

The exhibit, located on the first floor of the Kelly Library and curated by Kelly archivist Francesca Rousselle, links the Institute of the SOS with an informal defining motto: “Look at the big maps. Take the long view. Don’t tie yourselves down with too many written rules and customs. Always remain flexible”, which was framed on the office wall of co-founder Rev. George Daly, CSsR.

In time, as Donnelly’s vision of teaching Sisters in Western Canada was expanded to encompass all Catholic immigrants, her spirit and determination was embedded into the SOS charism. The Kelly’s new exhibit unveils Donnelly’s personality with an iconic image of her, axe in full swing, chopping a tree to clear a rugged road in British Columbia. It also includes artifacts and photos from the 60 SOS Canadian missions.

Also displayed will be a habit introduced in 1963, years before other women’s religious communities changed to a modified habit, a detail that demonstrates the Sisters’ adjustment to the societal and Vatican II changes of the 1960s.

“There are several things that set the Sisters of Service apart,” Rousselle says of the order, founded in Toronto in 1922. “Many members had already had careers. They had the kind of experience and maturity needed to take on practical tasks, right down to hauling water.”

James Roussain, the William D. Sharpe Chief Librarian and Director of Special Collections at the Kelly Library, says the exhibit documents the role the Sisters played in the history of Canada. “In telling their stories, we are highlighting the role the SOS played in the founding and growth of immigrant communities across Canada,” says Roussain. “These women were strong builders of community and looked after themselves.”

Sister Anna McNally, who held a series of educational positions in North Saskatchewan upon the closing of residential schools, remarks that the SOS sought people in the greatest need. “Our commitment was to come to help the people until they could take over, which they did,” she says.

The exhibit also pays tribute to the early support of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Toronto, who assigned senior Sisters as Superior and Novice Mistress for the first six years, as well as the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer (the Redemptorists).

The Big Maps exhibition was mounted to celebrate the donation of the SOS archives to the Kelly Library’s Special Collections: Archives and Rare Books, where they are available for public consultation.

The Big Maps exhibition will be on display on the ground floor of the Kelly Library until summer 2026. To attend the opening night, please RSVP.