“They should be looking for someone who has substantial and senior experience as a librarian, or archivist, or as an historian,” said James Turk, executive director at the Canadian Association of University Teachers, and a former Canadian Studies professor at the University of Toronto.
“Equally importantly, the person has to have the freedom to follow proper policies. What’s been unclear as to whether the disastrous direction the LAC has been going in over the last four years is the result of Mr. Caron’s preferences, or directions from the Prime Minister’s Office,”he said.
In the 2012 budget, Library and Archives Canada committed to cut- ting $9.6-million from its budget as part of the government’s wider push for savings to eliminate the deficit. The small organization has since let go of the equivalent of as many as 215 staff members including specialist archivists and staff charged with digitizing the collection. It has also cut hours of access to the archives, a key lending program, regional service centres, and other initiatives.
The library’s 2013-2014 bud- get is $98.4-million, and it now employs the equivalent of 860 full-time staff.
“The decrease in the budget that was enforced on Library and Archives Canada has put them in a difficult position.They were cut substantially more than other heritage institutions. I think that’s sort of where it stems. The federal government needs to take responsibility for those decisions,”said Pilar Martinez, president of the Canadian Library Association.
The next head of Library and Archives should have professional experience, agreed Ms. Martinez.
“Having said that, I think we would work with anybody who would have those leadership skills, that vision, that ability to communicate transparently and build relationships with the understanding that they have those librarians and archivists on staff who could help advise and help build that picture for them,” she added.
Mr. Caron resigned in May after it was reported that he spent $4,500 of public money on Spanish lessons. He also spent money on dozens of business meals at expensive Ottawa restaurants, and travel and hotels, and other items, for a total of more than $170,000 over 2011 and 2012.
Heritage Minister James Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, B.C.) said he spoke to Mr. Caron about his displeasure over the expenses, and the next day, May 15, Mr. Caron offered his resignation.
“I was not sad when he did that,”he told the House on June 11.
An economist by training, Mr. Caron served in the top job at Library and Archives for four years. But Ms. Martinez and others say he was mostly unknown.
“When we requested to have meetings with him, he would send his senior people or other staff,” noted Ms. Martinez, who added she did speak to Mr. Caron on occasion but didn’t know him well.
Mr. Caron did attend a conference of librarians in Ottawa in 2012, giving a speech.
“It was clear, I think to the members and in the tweets that were happening while he was speaking that he wasn’t up to date on various initiatives in our community. Talking about digitizing as a new phenomenon—of course that’s been going on for a long time. I don’t know that he had the respect of the community,” she said.
Mr. Caron’s temporary replacement as of May 24 is Hervé Déry, who has worked at the LAC since March 2012 as assistant deputy minister and corporate secretary of policy and collaboration. Like Mr. Caron, he has a background in economics.
Mr. Déry was set to meet with the Canadian Library Association last week, a move Ms. Martinez said was “a fabulous gesture.”
Recent policy and program developments have further concerned the library and archives community.
“There’s so many aspects to all of this, but at the end of the day it’s about a few simple things. It’s about Canada having a comprehensive collection of its historical and cultural heritage, and it’s about that collection being accessible,” said Mr.Turk.
“What Mr. Caron and the federal government have done at LAC over the last four or five years is to dramatically reduce access and to take steps that will mean that they’re not engaged in a comprehensive collection of materials for future genera- tions.That’s really what all of this comes down to,”he explained.
The Library and Archives announced last week that it has contracted Canadiana.org, a group of university libraries, to digitize a portion of its collection. In exchange, the group will have exclusive rights over the content for 10 years. Canadians who want to access to more than basic images will have to go to a university library or pay $10 a month, according to the Library.The deal, along with other digitization initiatives, will result in 100 million pages of content digitized.
While those involved may have had “the best of intentions,”said Mr. Turk, in the end, it will reduce Canadians’ access to their own heritage.
“The fact is the government is taking public property and it is selling it back to Canadians at a profit.These documents belong to the people of Canada.They have already paid for them,” said NDP MP Andrew Cash (Davenport, Ont.) in the House of Commons on June 11.
Mr. Moore has said individuals shouldn’t have to pay to access the public archives.
“When the new permanent president is installed probably this fall, he or she will look at the digitization aspect and will look at these questions and make sure that Library and Archives is modernized in a way that will benefit all Canadians,”he said in the House June 11.
Ms. Martinez said libraries often collaborate with outside organizations, and the intent of Canadiana.org is a good one.
“Digitization, if it’s done correctly and tagged correctly and searchable, it’s fantastic,”she said.
She added the government must recognize that digitization isn’t necessarily a cost-saving measure, and in fact takes an investments of money and staff.
“They try to mask diminished accessibility through talk of digitization,”said Mr.Turk.
“Less than half of one per cent of the LAC collection is digitized. One of the things that Mr. Caron did is lay off half the digitization staff they do have,”he said.
“At the rate they’re digitizing, we estimate it will take between 300 and 700 years until the collection is digitized,”Mr.Turk said.
Library and Archives has 20 million books, periodicals and government publications, three million maps, plans and architectural drawings, 425,000 pieces of art and 28 million photographs.
Spokesperson Richard Provencher said the Library never planned to digitize its entire collection. There are already 25 million pages online, he noted, and the goal is to have 500 million pages, or 10 per cent of the collection, available in a digital format in eight to 10 years, he added.
“LAC will digitize the most popular items in its collection,” Mr. Provencher explained in an email.
As of December 2012, the Library has also stopped its interlibrary loans service, which allowed Canadians to borrow materials from the library through their local branch.
“In the previous fiscal year, LAC answered over 20,000 requests for loans and copies from its collection. It also helped locate materials in other locations for another 11,000 responses. That’s gone now,” said Doug Marshall, president of the Union of National Employees, which represented 544 people at the library before staff cuts.
Librarians at the institution that Mr.Turk has spoken to are “horrified”at the end of the program, he said.
“The very notion that you would not make the resources of your national library available to libraries across the country when they don’t have the materials; it was just an idea that nobody could believe would be put forward, much less implemented,” he said.
The Library is working on a “lender of last resort”policy, similar to one at the United States’ Library of Congress, which should be in place this fall, said Mr. Provencher. The details of the policy will be released then.
Libraries in need can ask for specific items to be digitized or search Library and Archive’s national data- base to see if other organizations can lend an item out, he added.
The National Archival Development Program, which distributed $1.7-million in funds to small archives, has also been stopped.
“It is already affecting ... about 800 archives across Canada,”said Mr. Marshall.
“There are people who have lost their jobs who were performing very important preservation work, for instance, as well as dealing with education and advisory services that the program provides,”he explained.
Mr. Moore told the House Canadian Heritage Committee on March 20 it was a “difficult choice” to cut the archives program.
“When we worked with Daniel Caron and Library and Archives Canada and asked them to put together proposals to reduce their spending by between five per cent and 10 per cent and to come up with the programs that are the least efficient and the least effective in their eyes, based on their own self-assessment, this is what they arrived at as the program that was the least effective. It doesn’t mean that in the future there won’t be a reallocation of resources to try to backfill some of the lost opportunities,” he said.
But refunding the archives would likely be a case of shuffling already limited resources between programs, said Mr. Turk.
“He’s not talking about any more money. Every announcement that Minister Moore has made in relation to any of the LAC issues or any of the broader heritage issues, has always been any money has to come out of another pocket,” he said.
The Library is “committed to working with library and archival communities to determine how they can best support them going forward,”said Mr. Provencher.
The Library and Archives also introduced a revised Code of Con- duct for its employees this spring, and its provisions on what employees can do on their own time has caused a backlash. It labels activities like being a guest speaker at an academic conference or in a class- room as high-risk, and precludes employees from speaking about the organization publicly.
“That’s absolutely bizarre. It’s certainly contrary to the collective agreement that librarians have. It was so extreme that it had a chilling effect on employees,”said Mr. Marshall.
The union was not consulted in the development of the code, said Mr. Marshall, who added the group has now raised their objections to the code with management. Mr. Moore said he was also not consulted in the development of the code.
“It seemed overly rigid,”said Ms. Martinez.
“Not everybody can speak on every topic, but it seemed to go beyond that. We need those excellent colleagues, those very knowledgeable colleagues, to be presenting and attending conferences,” she added.
Mr.Turk said he was speaking at a meeting of the Ontario Association of Archivists in January when he first heard of the new code, which had not yet been made public.
“At the end of it, a group of people came up to me and said, ‘Jim we wanted to apologize for not asking questions or saying anything. We’re not sure if we could be in jeopardy or be disciplined for even being here,’” he said.
“What’s outrageous about the code of conduct is that it’s explicitly an attempt to muzzle librarians and archivists,”he added.
After so many objections, Mr. Marshall said the code is now under review, but there is no guarantee the library will make any changes.
“We are very proud of our approach, our policies, our commitments and our investments that will protect and promote Canada’s history,” Mr. Moore said in the House June 12.
The Library seems to have broken a four-year long dry spell in purchasing new artifacts with the purchase June 19 of the Sherbrooke Collection. It bought the collection of Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia and Governor General of British North America, who was a military leader during the War of 1812.
The collection, which cost $690,000 at auction in London, England, includes 80 manuscript and printed maps, 37 letter books, original correspondence, a portrait and other artifacts.
But Mr. Marshall and Mr.Turk say the library lacks the funds and the will to buy much else, and has missed some key opportunities to purchase parts of Canadian history.
“Those are holes that can never be replaced, that material is gone. They keep coming back to digitization, but you can’t digitize what you don’t have,” said Mr. Turk.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: JESSICA BRUNO
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