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

Research Your House

New House in Westdale

Various sources can be used to document the history of a building. Except for well-known Hamilton-area homes, most do not have a ready-made history to consult. Therefore, the researcher must construct a history from scratch using available sources. This process can take time, and unfortunately, some properties may have very few, if any, historical records.

Local History and Archives contains various potentially useful resources to research houses. These records include:

Telephone Directories

These directories show names, addresses and telephone numbers for the Hamilton-Wentworth region.

City Directories

Researchers and genealogists use city directories to trace individuals, families and businesses. They usually include an alphabetical listing of adult residents, with their occupations and addresses.

Assessment Records

Tax assessment records help accurately date a building's construction and disclose its original owner and list of occupants.

Land Registry Records

These records detail the chain of ownership of a property using plan and lot number.

Maps

Local History and Archives has several large scale maps that show the shape, size and exact location of individual buildings.

Historical Photographs

If your building was known by a name in addition to its address, you can search under that heading in our card catalogue. In the Local History and Archives reading room, check the Where-to-Look card catalogue under Hamilton – Street Address and Number or Hamilton – Name of house for a citation to the Image Collection. You can also check photographs of the street the house is located on to see if your building is shown.

There are also specialized finding aids for other collections available in Local History and Archives.

To obtain more information about the people associated with the building, you may wish to check family papers, clipping files, census returns, genealogical indexes, funeral home indexes, cemetery indexes, promotional booklets, photographs, local publications and other sources within Local History and Archives.

Check in the Where-to-Look under the surname or ask for assistance at the Local History and Archives Information Desk.

There are also invaluable records that can be requested through the City of Hamilton's Property Record Search and through the Ontario Land Registry (OnLand).