Central Library - York Blvd Dropbox Temporarily Closed
The York Boulevard drop box at Central Library is temporarily closed today, Monday June 27. Both the Jackson Square Lobby entrance and 1st Floor drop boxes remain open for library material returns. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Terryberry and Westdale Branches
Renovations at both the Terryberry and Westdale Branches are wrapping up. Both locations are expected to reopen in mid-July. Please stay tuned to our website and social media channels for updates. Thank you for your patience.
Hamilton Spectator Collection

In 1978, the Executive Editor of the Spectator newspaper arranged to begin transferring their reference files of photographic negatives and news clippings to Local History & Archives [then Special Collections]. The arrangement was that the Spectator would only hold the most recent five years worth of negatives and all negatives older than that would be transferred.
Over the years other material has been transferred including:
Hamilton Spectator Daily Negatives
The negatives taken by staff photographers for the daily edition of the newspaper. They are filed chronologically by the date the photograph appeared in the newspaper. There is no master index; therefore, to find the image required, you must know the day the photograph appeared in the newspaper. Many of these daily negatives have been printed and added to the mounted photograph collection by subject.
These files start in 1955 and continue until 1998 with gaps.
"S" Files
These are special negatives which were removed from the daily files because of special interest or subject matter, and filed separately by title (ie. Football, Politics, People, etc.) or date range.
Murdoch Collection Listing
From November 4, 1950 until August 28, 1965, Bruce Murdoch (ca1893-1966), a Spectator photographer, wrote and illustrated a weekly series of articles about small towns in Ontario. There is a complete index of this part of the collection.
Spectator Collection Antiquarian Photographs
40 antiquarian photographs (most late 19th and early 20th century) of Hamilton and area. All have been copied and added to the mounted picture collection.
Finding Aid: R019 HOU CESH