Ian Wilson says it smack of “desperation” by the federal government.
Further, he says the contents of our archives are “a public good” like historic sites and national parks, and shouldn’t be sold back to us.
Library and Archives Canada is already “superb” at preserving documents, he said.
“The key issue is now digitization, and how to get, in a modern era, this material out to Canadians from coast to coast to coast” at all times.
The issue blew up Tuesday, when the Citizen revealed a secret deal in which LAC will provide millions of documents to Canadiana.org. The non-profit company will make digital images and can sell them for 10 years to cover its costs. Originals remain public property.
“My own interpretation of this is it’s a very clear sign of desperation,” Wilson said. “In effect we’re downloading the cost of digitization to the universities,” because Canadiana.org is formed by university libraries across Canada.
“Other countries see this as a national responsibility. England (and) the United States are putting huge amounts of money into digitizing their documentary heritage.”
“We shouldn’t ask our university libraries to fund it. It’s our memory, our recorded memory. It is an online museum. When you go through the record, you get the authentic voice of those who made this country. You get the letters and the diaries ... you get the cabinet minutes. You get records that show in their own voice what they were trying to do, and their hopes and achievements. It’s all there.”
The mass of material includes “documents and photographs and documentary art and portraits and film.” He calls it “a source of national pride.”
“We have not been able to secure that kind of funding in Canada.”
“We still don’t have online the papers of all our prime ministers,” he said.
“We’ve got John A. Macdonald’s papers online but no Laurier papers, and the Borden and the Bennett (papers) — where are those? Those should be online.”
There should also be personal papers of ordinary people online, Wilson said.
“All of that belongs to the people of Canada. It’s all ours, we are paying to store it, we are paying to preserve it properly.”
“And there’s real demand out there.”
“The key is to have a systematic national program to digitize the key records. Not everything; we couldn’t do it all.”
There are 1.2 million maps in the collection. “Why aren’t those maps available? I think the earliest is (from) 1508. Why isn’t that available online? Other countries are doing it but for some reason we haven’t been able to get the attention and drive for it.”
“Let’s do it once, do it well. It’s the knowledge economy version of a capital project. It’s our intellectual capital and it’s worth getting up there.”
In 2011, the Commons Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage recommended digitizing archival documents and putting them online.
“What Canadiana is proposing is, I think, a very generous way and I think a very creative way” to do what the government is not doing, Wilson said.
But the Canadian Library Association is all for the deal.
“We think it’s fantastic,” said president Pilar Martinez.
She says the government shouldn’t be “downloading” the cost of digitizing onto the libraries. But she also said it’s sometimes necessary for the public to pay for access to things it owns — for instance, to enter a national park.
She said Canadiana.org has been making archival materials available for many years and can be trusted because it’s a non-profit agency.
It’s essential to make these national collections available more widely because “this is part of who we are,” she said.
At the University of Toronto, Wendy Duff also says the Canadiana.org deal may be the best practical way to get the information to anyone who lives outside Ottawa.
“I’m a huge believer in making material available,” said Duff, who’s in the faculty of information.
“I think this will make material available” that isn’t today, she said. “I am of course concerned about a pay wall. I would hope there would be a way that the public libraries could license material.”
“Doctoral students will be able to use archival resources if they live in B.C. or Halifax or Newfoundland without having to go to Ottawa. As a person who has spent a lot of time in the Maritimes, that would be a good thing.”
“Twenty years ago I would have said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, we can’t go into business,” she said. “Canadiana is a non-profit. It is dedicated to making material available.”
But she said there has to be assurance that access will include the public, and not just university researchers.
“This ... will only be realized if, whatever the pay schedule is, public libraries and schools are given an ability to get this without spending millions of dollars.”
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Tom Spears
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