Locally-Owned Coffee House Set To Open in Toronto Reference Library
The Toronto Reference Library is one of the many branches in the Toronto Public Library system, the busiest urban library system in the world.
Later this month locally-owned Balzac’s Coffee Roasters will open in the library and a new article from BlogTO tells the story of the coffee house and its owner.
We love everything about this story.
From the Article:
When Balzac’s Coffee Roasters’ new location at Toronto Reference Library opens later this month, founder and co-owner Diana Olsen’s entrepreneurial odyssey will have come full circle.
[Emphasis Ours] “I love the Reference Library. When I first moved to Toronto in 1991, it was one of my hangouts,” Olsen, 48, says. “I lived right by there and spent countless hours in the library doing research for opening my company. It’s near and dear to my heart.”
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The new library location will also lend itself to creative inspiration from its literary-rich surroundings. “I work with a lot of writers. I have many friends who are writers. For any writers that want to do a reading, we will make our space available,” says Olsen, as she dreams out loud with a summery glass of lemonade.
Read the Complete Article
Filed under: Libraries, News, Public Libraries

About Gary Price
Gary Price (gprice@gmail.com) is a librarian, writer, consultant, and frequent conference speaker based in the Washington D.C. metro area. He earned his MLIS degree from Wayne State University in Detroit. Price has won several awards including the SLA Innovations in Technology Award and Alumnus of the Year from the Wayne St. University Library and Information Science Program. From 2006-2009 he was Director of Online Information Services at Ask.com.