Annual reports typically make for dry reading. Few people read the finely crafted, but lengthy, text. Instead, we tend to look at the photos and glance at sub-titles.
Library and Archives Canada’s 2015-2016 annual report does not fit the usual dry style. Instead, it has been produced for its users and the average Canadian. The articles are short, making it ideal for the short attention span of many of today’s readers.
Library and Archives Canada annual report, 2015-2016.
You can read the annual report online with links to pages on Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) website or read the appealing and graphic PDF version. Both versions make for palatable reading because the titles are snappy and eye-catching, the articles are thankfully short, and the graphics and photos make it easy to find what interests a reader.
While the text throughout LAC’s website is unusually small for some unknown reason, I still prefer reading the web page because of the links to other areas of the website.
Highlights from the annual report:
- Genealogy is the website’s number one topic.
- 25 million digital images online.
- LAC’s Facebook page received 5 million views every month.
- Number one tweet: “Were your ancestors involved in the War of 1812? Find out in our new online database!”
- November 11, 2015, was the busiest day ever on the LAC website, with nearly 24,000 visitors viewing roughly 206,000 pages.
- Most-viewed blog post was about the 1940 National Registration File — “confirming just how interested Canadians are in genealogical research!”
- Website was viewed almost 90 million times by more than 15 million visitors who conducted more than 800,000 searches.
- When the project to digitize more than 640,000 WWI CEF service files is complete, some 32 million images will be available on LAC’s website for online research.
- LAC launched the Documentary Heritage Communities Program in June 2015 to provide funding for private organizations across Canada to help them preserve, promote, and provide access to their collections. Archives centres, library associations, historical societies and other heritage groups are eligible.
- The Theses Canada Portal continued to grow in popularity, with more than 27,000 new titles submitted in 2015–2016 and more than 600,000 downloads.
- So far, LAC has contributed 65 datasets to Canada’s Open Data Portal, covering a wide range of content, including the Lower Canada Land Petitions (1626-1865), Upper Canada Land Petitions (1763-1865), and Western Canada Land Grants (1870-1930).
The online and PDF versions of the annual report can be found here.
