Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) newly released 2019–2020 annual report, with the theme, Working Today to Preserve Our Tomorrow, highlights the achievements during the past fiscal year.
These highlights include:
- Appointment of Leslie Weir as Librarian and Archivist of Canada;
- Unveiling of the design for the joint facility that LAC will share with Ottawa Public Library;
- Beginning of construction of a second preservation centre—the first net-zero carbon facility dedicated to documentary preservation in the Americas;
- Launch of the Indigenous Heritage Action Plan, which comprises 28 actions by LAC to recognize Indigenous rights and increase access to its collection.
Departure of Guy Berthiaume
Last year marked LAC’s 15th anniversary and the departure in June of Librarian and Archivist of Canada Guy Berthiaume, who was succeeded by Ms. Weir.
Over the course of his five-year tenure, Dr. Berthiaume led a number of accomplishments, such as LAC’s joint facility with Ottawa Public Library, the new preservation centre in Gatineau, the National Heritage Digitization Strategy, the Documentary Heritage Communities Program, and the completion of the single largest digitization project it has ever undertaken, making all of the records for the 622,290 soldiers of the Canadian Expeditionary Force now searchable online.
“Under Dr. Berthiaume’s guidance, LAC embraced the digital revolution and the culture of citizen participation by reaching out to its users, employees, stakeholders and partners across the country to develop the crowdsourcing tool Co-Lab, as well as public digitization services such as DigiLab in Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver.”
During the course of Dr. Berthiaume’s stewardship, LAC made historic investments in reconciliation and, working with an advisory circle of Elders and Indigenous leaders, introduced major initiatives to support Indigenous communities in preserving, revitalizing and enhancing their languages and cultures.
Digitization projects
Digitization projects in 2019-2020 include:
- The Canadian Research and Mapping Association, for War Diaries of the Second World War
- LAC’s Indigenous initiative We Are Here: Sharing Stories
- LAC’s reference collections, such as indexes, finding aids and microfilm collections, providing better access to these records and search aids in digital format in preparation for the move to the new LAC-OPL joint facility in late 2024
New databases
Databases added during the fiscal year include:
- 1921 Census
- Aurora, the new catalogue to access LAC’s published holdings
- Black Loyalist Refugees, 1782–1807—Port Roseway Associates
- North West Mounted Police—Personnel Records, 1873–1904
- Personnel Records of the First World War
- Service Files of the Royal Canadian Navy, 1910–1941—Ledger Sheets
- Service Files of the Second World War—War Dead, 1939–1947
Collection Search launched
LAC released the new Collection Search on its website in July 2019. This tool enables users to search various items more easily and efficiently from a single search location.
The year in numbers
- Questions answered by reference services: 22,740
- Questions answered by reference services at regional service points: 2,169
- Number of images digitized: 3,411,697
- Website: 4,322,323 visits
