To learn about the career path Dr. Guy Berthiaume took to become the Librarian and Archivist of Canada, you could read his entry in Wikipedia.
A more interesting read, however, is Graham Fraser’s review of Dr. Berthiaume’s memoir, Mes grandes bibliothèques: Mes archives, mes mémoires (My great libraries: My archives, my memories), in the January-February 2024 issue of Literary Review of Canada.
Mr. Fraser, who is a former journalist, author of several books, and was Canada’s sixth Commissioner of Official Languages, writes that the book is a “shrewd management textbook disguised as a memoir. In this candid account, (Dr. Berthiaume) describes how he learned from bad bosses and good ones; how he developed a sense of when to stay in a job and when to move on; and how he managed to expand the horizons of every institution he served.”
“Berthiaume, for his part, believed ‘the core business of libraries and archives is not so much acquisition and conservation, but access.’ Without that, ‘what is the point in acquiring, treating, and conserving?'”
While reading the review, I was disappointed to learn that Dr. Berthiaume’s tenure as president and director general of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, from 2008 to 2014, ended because he had stayed politically neutral and not supported the province’s governing party at the time, the Parti Québécois, even though he had been involved with their campaign more than 35 years earlier.
I had naively thought that people were hired to head state organizations, such as the Quebec Archives, based on their skills and experience, not their political affiliation.
Mr. Fraser ends his review with these lines: “With wit and candour, Guy Berthiaume tells a story of a successful career, peppered with vivid portraits, kind and critical sketches of his various supervisors, and lessons learned along the way. He concludes by saying he was lucky. Maybe so — but he was also very smart, he worked hard, and he was willing to share his insights.”
