Margaret Haines
By Laura Byrne Paquet, BJ/87
Photos: Jessica Deeks
Margaret Haines was one of many Nepean High School graduates who came to Carleton in 1967. “I’ve seen the impact Carleton had on their careers and mine. I think we all owe a lot to Carleton,” she says, with obvious affection for the university. “Sometimes I think we forget that Carleton launched our careers.”
After earning her undergraduate psychology degree at Carleton in 1970, Margaret studied library science and then worked in libraries in Canada and the United Kingdom. She was drawn back to Canada by a job offer from Carleton and served as the university’s chief librarian from 2006 to 2014.
In that position, she gained a distinctive understanding of the library’s needs. She had contributed to Carleton through payroll deductions, but after retiring in 2016, she began investigating other ways to keep contributing to the school. She and Gillian Whyte, senior development officer, personal and planned giving, in the department of university advancement, devised a twofold plan.
Giving Back
If Margaret’s estate is large enough, the university will set up an endowment to help Carleton library employees pursue post-graduate education, something she advocated strongly as chief librarian. If the estate is not large enough for such an endowment, the alternative is equally close to her heart: she will provide a legacy donation to the library’s special collections program.
At the library, she worked closely with colleagues such as Patti Harper, head of archives and research collections, to acquire and process intriguing collections of materials and artifacts.
She recalls travelling with Patti to an alumnus’s country home to view his extensive collection of prime ministerial materials—everything from oil paintings to campaign buttons. Unexpectedly, the donor urged them to take the lot immediately, so they drove back to Ottawa in a car packed with rare items wrapped in bedsheets, including a bust of Pierre Trudeau. “It was exciting—kind of the thrill of a treasure seeker in the library and archive world—to get a collection like that,” she recalls.
Funding special collections is a way to give back to her hometown. “We feel a very strong responsibility to look after collections in the Ottawa area for the whole of Ottawa, not just for the Carleton community,” she notes. “I do feel strongly that the library is a place where the whole of the Ottawa community should be able to come in and use the wealth of resources that we have.”