After a year-long search, the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ) finally announced yesterday that Jean-Louis Roy has been appointed president and chief executive officer, effective June 4.
Former president and CEO Christiane Barbe had resigned in April 2017, and since that time, Geneviève Pichet had been acting president and CEO.
Mr. Roy is a Canadian historian, journalist and diplomat. He was editor of Le Devoir newspaper from 1980 to 1986, the government of Quebec’s delegate-general to Paris and the province’s international delegate for francophone affairs from 1986 to 1989, and the first and only secretary-general of the Agence de coopération culturelle et technique from 1989 to 1997 when the organization was succeeded by the Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie. He was also president of the agency Rights and Democracy from 2002 to 2007.
In the early years of his career, from 1971 to 1981, Mr. Roy was director of the Centre for French-Canadian Studies at McGill University.
The 77-year-old told Le Devoir, in French, “I have a very precise idea of the importance of culture. BAnQ is at the heart of things. The Grande Bibliothèque (library) represents our past as well as our future. For me, this is not a place or collections: it is the fact that millions of people enter this library, physically or online. … It is an institution that citizens have taken to in a remarkable way.”
According to Le Devoir, a number of people were approached, but turned down the position. Time will tell if the right person accepted.
