Meet the man behind a 200-year-old room, the N.S. legislature's library

If books could speak, Nova Scotia's Legislative Library would be loud.

Conversations about the history of puns or a speech in Province House in four languages might come as a surprise. Some books' voices would crackle, having been silent for decades or centuries. Instead, the books sit silently as traffic rushes below a second-storey window on Hollis Street in Halifax.

Head librarian David McDonald reshelves, declutters and preserves all 72,000 volumes in the library's collection — including a prisoner exchange agreement between the French and British that might be Canada's first bilingual document, and newspapers from the 1800s. 

McDonald loves history and books and, unexpectedly, also wears high socks with pictures of beer and pretzels on them. Then there's the dancing. In university, he helped teach in the ballroom dance society. His most common phrase is, "Oh golly."

McDonald loves his work. He's touched every one of the 24,000 volumes in the library itself, and preserves the other 48,000 volumes in the library's storage space across the street. He twice went on vacation to tour libraries, once in Europe and once on a tour he organized in Ontario. He knows the House of Assembly plumber's name and uncovered a hidden sink in the room not even the plumber knew about.

This is McDonald's calling. 

Three decades ago, he was working in accounting when he had a eureka moment. He knew he wasn't happy in the job and also that he loved learning and research. So McDonald enrolled in a master of library and information science program at Dalhousie University in Halifax. He graduated in 1999 and, after working for a computer software company, was hired at the Legislative Library in 2003. 

McDonald scoffs at the idea that librarians are boring. To him, libraries are a hallmark of democracy.

Before it was a library, it was Nova Scotia's Supreme Court. Almost two hundred years ago, in 1835, Joseph Howe, the publisher of the Novascotian, published criticism of local magistrates. He fought the ensuing libel charges and won. A plaque on the doorway says Howe's, "masterly defence not only won him a triumphant acquittal, but established, forever, the freedom of the press in this country." 

In addition to taking care of the books, McDonald and his staff receive questions from MLAs, political staffers, journalists and government employees. Questions could concern anything from tax laws to century-old archives. The information is used to research bills for debates and to prepare for question period.  

McDonald says people have to enjoy politics to work in the legislature. But if he favoured one MLA over another, he'd be fired. Every party needs equal access to library information. 

Similarly, the library deeply values confidentiality. McDonald doesn't tell his friends the questions he receives. He won't even share the details of a request with a client's co-workers unless the client specifically gives him permission. Sharing information could put political plans in jeopardy. More than that, it breaks the clients' trust.

Over two decades of working at the library, the advent of tools like Google have changed the questions McDonald receives.

"I like to get down and dirty into the complex ones," he says. He gets more of those, now that people easily can do initial research on their own before coming to him. 

Except for Yukon, there's a library in every legislature in Canada. McDonald says the Ontario library has over 60 staff members. He says most legislative libraries have at least 10 people. The Nova Scotia Legislative Library has seven. McDonald says the library is expected to do the same amount of work with fewer staff compared to other libraries, meaning they can't go as in-depth in their research. Still, the staff say the library is known for doing a lot with a little. 

McDonald says he doesn't know if everyone understands how important libraries are. 

"It's a privilege to work there. It's a privilege."