City-Wide Outage, Library Service Impacted

HPL is recovering from the City of Hamilton's cybersecurity-related outage, which began Sunday February 25 and continues today, Wednesday November 20. Learn more.

Public computers are available at all branches.
Printing is available at all branches. Photocopying is available at all branches except for the Concession, Dundas, and Terryberry branches. Scanning is not yet available.
Public Wi-Fi is available at most branches except the Ancaster Branch.
Automatic check-ins are operating.
Makerspace services are available at select locations.

Contact Library Staff: call 289-779-7588, chat at hpl.ca, and email askus@hpl.ca. Branches are open. Check hpl.ca/events for program updates. Thank you for your patience.

Frequently Asked Questions | HPL

Publish Date:

Tuesday, November 12, 2024 - 8:00am

Notices

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Magazine and ILLO Delay

Magazine and ILLO deliveries are delayed due to the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) strike. Thank you for your understanding.

Publish Date:

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 - 8:30am

City IT Planned Maintenance

A City IT systems update is scheduled for early Saturday morning. This will impact access to HPL's network and some applications. This update will improve overall network capacity, performance, resiliency, reliability and is the foundation for future network updates. Thank you for your patience.

Publish Date:

Wednesday, November 20, 2024 - 8:00am

3D Printing Not Available On Sundays

Please note that 3D printing services are unavailable on Sundays. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Publish Date:

Thursday, November 14, 2024 - 2:00pm

Early Closure - All HPL Branches, Friday, November 22

Due to a special event, all HPL branches will close at 4 pm on Friday, November 22.

Central Library's 4th Floor will be closed all day except for the Newcomer Learning Centre and Makerspace which will be open until 4 pm.

Regular service hours resume on Saturday, November 23.

Thank you for your understanding.

Affected Branch:

Central Library

Publish Date:

Wednesday, November 13, 2024 - 2:00pm

Delayed Branch Openings

Due to Staff training, the following branches have delayed openings of 10 am on:

Tuesday, November 19: Concession

Wednesday, November 20: Ancaster (2 pm opening)

Thursday, November 21: Valley Park

Please visit nearby branches for your library needs. www.hpl.ca/hours

Publish Date:

Wednesday, November 13, 2024 - 12:00pm

Kenilworth Branch - Roof Repairs

From November 11 to 29, the parking lot may not be available at certain times of the day due to repair maintenance. There may also be some noise disruptions in the branch. Thank you for your understanding.

Affected Branch:

Kenilworth Branch

Publish Date:

Thursday, November 7, 2024 - 3:00pm

Beckett Collection

Hamilton Street Railway, 1912

Hubert William Beckett (ca1892-1967) was born in Hamilton. After gaining some renown as an amateur photographer of children, he opened a professional studio in 1925, on James Street South, and was active as a portrait photographer until his deathin 1967 at age 75.

In November of 1972, his collection of negatives and filing cards was delivered to the Hamilton Public Library. This collection consisted of 35.4 metres of photographic negatives, with the corresponding index cards.

In 1977, approximately 14,000 of the negatives were found to be on a cellulose acetate base and therefore highly flammable. These negatives were duplicated and the originals destroyed.

There are approximately 26,000 negatives in the Beckett Collection.

Finding Aid: There is an in-house finding aid to this collection