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The southeast corner of Robarts Library

Rear corner of Robarts Library

Looking up the side of the Library

Lightvector painting of Robarts Library, showing the ambient sky vector blue and the ambient vector of electric lights in yellow.

Robarts Library is the main humanities and social sciences library of the University of Toronto. Opened in 1973, it is currently the largest book repository in Canada. Robarts Library is the heart of the University of Toronto library system, which is the fourth largest academic library system in North America, after that of Harvard, Yale and the University of Illinois, Urbana. However, according to the Association of Research Libraries, Robarts Library is ranked third in North America after Harvard and Yale.^[1] As of April, 2005, it held 10.3 million bookform items, 5.3 million microform items, and 1.8 million other items in its collections.^[2] The library is named after former Ontario Premier John Robarts. It occupies an entire block at the northwest corner of St. George Street and Harbord Street. With 14.8 million volumes and a massive collection of periodicals and journals, Robarts Library is the largest humanities and social science library in Canada.

The library's main building is a large brutalist/futurist concrete structure which to some people looks like a giant peacock when viewed from the south (see top picture) with the small tower in front representing the peacock's neck and beak, while the library stacks in the background are thought to look like its extended tail.

Its design was conceived in the 1960s by Toronto architects Mathers and Haldenby, in collaboration with the New York architecture firm Warner Burns Toan & Lunde, who specialized in precast concrete buildings. Construction of the 14-story library was completed in 1973.

The library was initially intended for use by graduate students only, but following student protests, undergraduate students were also granted access. The library's initial design was for a mechanical book conveyor belt system to allow for faster collection by library staff, who would then send books downstairs for pickup. After Robarts was opened to all students, the conveyor system was discarded, although the tracks used by the conveyor system are still visible above the shelves.

Robarts Library is home to the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, which contains a priceless collection of manuscripts and first editions.

It is also the home of Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, which holds a collections of over 380,000 volumes of materials in Chinese, Japanese and Korean, and of the Old English Dictionary Project.

In addition to a rich collection of texts, "Robarts," as University of Toronto students commonly refer to it, contains several other useful services for University of Toronto students. 24-hour quiet reading rooms are open when the university is in session. As well, the Information Commons, a large bank of computers connected to the internet on the first floor, allow all University of Toronto students access to computers, printers, scanners, and audiovisual equipment. Additionally, the university's Accessibility Services and its test/exam site are also located in this library.

The library is located at 43.6638° N 79.3997° W. It is possible to identify it in aerial photos looking for a large equilateral triangle.

Robarts Library has many nicknames including Fort Barts, Fort Book, Jail, the Bunker, Robots, and the Turkey. All of these nicknames refer to the stoic, blockish appearance of the shape (especially the Turkey, as the building looks more like a turkey than a peacock at first glance).

The library was featured in the episode, The One Where Joey Speaks French, of the popular television series Friends. Robarts Library is shown briefly during a scene transition and is implied to be the outdoor view of an unknown New York hospital where actress Jennifer Aniston's character Rachel visits her father, who has just suffered a heart attack.

The library was also shown in an episode of Sliders, called "El Sid." It is shown briefly as a still visual after a commercial break, in an episode where the story takes place in an alternate San Francisco that has become a giant prison.

It was also seen during a slide transition during the season finale of The Amazing Race 8: Family Edition. The Bransen Family were running past it after finishing a Roadblock (a game task) at the nearby Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

• Robarts Library at the University of Toronto
• Satellite image of Robarts Library from Google Maps

Coordinates: 43°39′51.49″N, 79°23′58.33″W