The Honourable Pablo Rodriguez, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism, announced yesterday the appointment of Leslie Weir as Librarian and Archivist of Canada for a four-year term, effective August 30, 2019.
Ms. Weir will be the first woman to become Librarian and Archivist of Canada since the merging of the two institutions. She will have big shoes to fill when she replaces the outgoing Librarian and Archivist of Canada, Dr. Guy Berthiaume.
Leslie Weir. Source: Twitter profile.
Ms. Weir was the university librarian at the University of Ottawa from 2003 to 2018. Prior to her tenure at the university, she held positions at the National Library of Canada and the Statistics Canada Library.
From 2012 to 2016, Ms. Weir served as president of Canadiana.org where she oversaw the introduction of the Heritage Project, in collaboration with Library and Archives Canada, to digitize and make openly accessible some 60 million heritage archival images.
Last fall, the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) recognized Ms. Weir’s “leadership and exemplary career achievements” with the OCUL Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ms. Weir earned a Masters in Library Science from McGill University and a Bachelor of Arts (Canadian History) from Concordia University.
