Empty Archives: Reflections on an Institution in Crisis

“Of all national assets archives are the most precious; they are the gift of one generation to another and the extent of our care of them marks the extent of our civilization.” Arthur Doughty, Dominion Archivist and Keeper of the Records, 1904-1935

What’s the use of having a gloriously stocked library if no one is allowed to use it?

This question may well have been on King George ll’s mind when the British Museum Library opened its doors in January, 1759. He’d just donated a pile of his own books to the newly public collection. “Tho’ chiefly designed for the use of learned and studious men, both native and foreigners, in their researches into several parts of knowledge, yet being a national institution…the advantages accruing from it should,” he said, “be rendered as general as possible.”

Seventy-seven years on, in 1836, Antonio Panizzi, the great Principal Librarian at the same institution, wrote “I want a poor student to have the same means of indulging his learned curiosity, of following his rational pursuits, of consulting the same authorities, of fathoming the most intricate inquiry, as the richest man in the Kingdom, as far as books go, and I contend that Government is bound to give him the most liberal and unlimited assistance in this respect.”

From the lips, then, of those responsible for establishing and building one of the world’s biggest and best national libraries, our question is answered: a library is of little use if nobody is allowed in. And liberal public access, when it’s a national library, is vital to the advancement of knowledge, research and culture.

Working from this foundation, Panizzi’s goal was to represent, in the library, every conceivable aspect of British life and thought, in order to “showcase the nation itself”. During his tenure he succeeded in transforming the British Library into one of the world’s most revered cultural institutions.

Canada, through an order-in-council passed in 1872, appointed Douglas Brymner, an officer in the Department of Agriculture, to take responsibility for historical documents of national significance. “Acutely aware of the value of history,” says the Dictionary of Canadian Biography about Brymner, “he realized that there could be no study without raw materials and so he dedicated himself to building collections that would allow historical research, and the historical profession in Canada, to expand and flourish.”

In 1904 the “most interesting man in Ottawa” (according to MacKenzie King ) took over from Brymner and was appointed Dominion Archivist & Keeper of the Public Records. Under Arthur G. Doughty the Public Archives of Canada (created as a separate department by an Act of Parliament in 1912), vigorously undertook to locate and list important archival material from across the country. After 30 years of outstanding work Doughty was awarded a knighthood in 1935, an extraordinary honour for a civil servant. William Kaye Lamb continued this aggressive program of documentary acquisition throughout the 50s and 60s. In planning and developing the National Library, from its creation in 1953 forward, Lamb’s primary concern was to make the institution “useful and accessible to all Canadians.”

In 1987 the Public Archives became the National Archives. In 1992, as part of Canada’s 125th birthday celebrations, a beautiful book was published. Designed by Frank Newfeld, it was entitled Treasures of the National Archives of Canada, and contained this, from Jean Pierre Wallot, the National Archivist: “By preserving the past and making it accessible, archives help us understand the present, and provide a basis from which to view the future. As this country’s collective memory, archives provide the continuity of culture and the building blocks of nationhood. They are a vital public resource, not only for historians, but for all citizens — those who govern, educate, create and participate. As the past continues to be interpreted and reinterpreted from the perspective of changing times, the archival record is preserved as the constant resource for the use of future generations.”

In 2004, the National Archives and the National Library were ordered merged by Liberal Minister of Heritage Sheila Copps. This happened despite a 1999 Report by Dr. John English recommending that the two “be separate institutions with distinct leaders.”

The plan for the new entity, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), was for it to (1) be a new knowledge institution; (2) provide national leadership and focus to library and archives; (3) cooperate and work with other groups to strengthen the whole of Canada’s heritage; (4) be a national public learning institution; and (5) be a leader in government information management.

These goals are not being met.In the ten years since the merger, short sighted planning combined with serious budget cuts have eroded the organization’s ability to fulfill its mandate and to adequately serve its publics. In fact, according to many in the field, the results have been little short of disastrous. Ex Libris, a national association of persons interested in historical and current issues about archives and libraries, put out a document stating that Canada’s primary archival institution mandated with maintaining and collecting our national history is not, now, “a library, or archives, or portrait gallery as originally envisioned — but a new-style institution that librarians, archivists and users are having difficulty recognizing and using.”

For Canadian writers this means a number of things. Most importantly, because of a marked reduction in client services — (some 200 LAC staff have been laid off over the last few years — it is more difficult now than ever to access reference materials at 395 Wellington Street. While libraries around the world have been busy forming partnerships and digitizing their collections, all LAC has done, until very recently, is reduce services to the public. The LAC website states that the organization’s goal is “to shift its service model from a largely in-person approach to service to a largely unmediated (self-serve) approach focused on enhanced virtual access to content and services.” Ironically, archival descriptions of much online material have, during the past few years, been shortened, making it more difficult for people to find the materials they’re looking for. Traditional means of access were cut back before digital alternatives were developed to replace them. And now that digital alternatives are finally being announced, they, too, are proving problematic from an access perspective.

The Writers’ Union recently released a press released “calling on both Library and Archives Canada and the not-for-profit digitization consortium Canadiana.ca to clarify the details of a reported digitization deal that will see parts of LAC’s collection enter ‘premium service’ holdings requiring subscription-only access.” Even if effective on-line options finally do become available, in many cases e-mail and web searches cannot adequately substitute for traditional exchange. Despite this, ad hoc reference assistance from the library’s research staff is (as of last year) no longer available. This former service can now only be had on a “by appointment only” basis. Additionally, effective December 11, 2012 Library and Archives Canada informed all public libraries in Canada that it would stop its Interlibrary Loan service. This means that Canadians can no longer access LAC materials in their local libraries. Only a tiny percentage of holdings have been scanned. For now Canadians are stuck with nothing. When I approached LAC for an official response regarding their current level of service and their plans moving forward, I did not receive a reply, my calls were not answered.

Reductions to crucial on-site services, fewer specialist personnel, and poorly functioning on-line access together make it more difficult than ever for writers and researchers to do their work, and for interested Canadians to access their history. Jane Urquhart told me recently, for example, that, in trying to get information about her own papers from LAC, she “couldn’t get a hold of anyone.”

Not only is it more difficult to lay hands on existing historical documentation, LAC seems to have lost interest in collecting any more of it. In 2009, a 10-month moratorium on acquisitions was announced. Four years later, this moratorium is still in place. The purchase of items of national significance from individuals (authors’ papers, for example), and non-public organizations, constitutes an essential part of the LAC collection mandate. Such items provide Canadians with the unofficial story of Canada’s past. Gaps in this record will block current and future generations from being able to adequately interpret their history. LAC management seems to think that getting free copies of books through legal deposit is sufficient. And it hasn’t been able to reach agreements with Canadian publishers to provide public access to books published strictly in digital formats.

Finally, where writers are concerned, LAC seems to have stopped trying to form relationships between the creative community, collectors and the general reading public. As Lorne Bruce, President of Ex Libris puts it, “LAC doesn't seem to realize it should do more to connect readers with authors and work to form active, meaningful two-way relationships. On-site programming at 395 Wellington has languished. [Nothing happens] unless authors or publishers themselves take on the work of booking rooms for book launches or readings. LAC closed down its web Learning Centre for children and schools in 2010 despite protests from the Canadian Teachers Federation. It has stopped producing its children’s literature database PIKA, and 'Read Up On It' magazine which promoted English and French children’s books. It’s still involved in the TD Summer Reading program with hundreds of other libraries, but it doesn't seem to realize this kind of activity could be extended to reach adult readers and book lovers as well.” Relations with publishers and writers have been marginalized in LAC's seemingly never-ending search for "core business" and "new service models."

Last summer I spent several days with Jane Urquhart, Michael Redhill and Terry Fallis, separately visiting some of the places that feature in their works. I was in Port Hope to see the spot where thousands of Irish immigrants first stepped on Canadian shores; in downtown Toronto to witness the vast and complete changes that have transformed the city skyline over the past 100 years; and on the Hill in Ottawa to admire the Library of Parliament’s beautiful stonework.

The take-away message from this was that these authors would not have been able to write their novels without access to the contents of libraries and archives. Without raw material to inform, animate, inspire and direct their imaginative depictions of people, places and events, their books would likely not have been anywhere near as good. As Urquhart puts it, “Source documents operate as stimuli. There’s something exciting and motivating about the discovery of new facts. They can set you off in different directions, open up the synapses, create new narrative paths. In a way, too, they grant permission. We don’t have elders who’ve memorized 90 thousand stories. Instead we rely on books and archival documents; they feed our storytelling urge; and they’re essential to our humanity.”

With this as prologue, the words contained in a letter sent several months ago to Canada’s Members of Parliament under Bibliographical Society of Canada President Janet Friskney’s signature, assume particular importance:

“LAC/BAC is Canada’s equivalent to the British Library or the US Library of Congress. The institution houses a vast array of published and unpublished documentary materials related to the history of Canada. These materials run the gamut from books, newspapers, and magazines through photographs, films, videos, art, maps and sound recordings to the records of government, organizations and private individuals. Building these holdings has been a painstaking effort that dates back more than a century. Some collections held at LAC/BAC run into the hundreds of thousands items, others into the millions. These documents illuminate Canada and its development in a multitude of ways, and serve as the raw materials out of which the chroniclers and storytellers among us build our collective memory. Failure to provide the resources to collect, protect, or provide access to Canada’s documentary heritage in an effective and sensible manner suggests a betrayal of the legislated obligations of the Library and Archives Canada Act, and of the trust that Canadians bestow when they elect individuals to serve as members of the Parliament of Canada.”

Governments and Prime Ministers are wont to put their stamp on history, to promote their visions of the country, their versions of the world. The new Museum of History in Ottawa exemplifies this. It will present one view of Canada’s past. There is nothing wrong with a new venue in which to celebrate Canadian history but, of necessity, the presentation will be prescriptive, with the Museum serving as little more than a big display case for a version of the past curated, if not by the Conservative government, then by a select group of historians chosen by them, with some cursory input from ‘ordinary’ Canadians.

Meanwhile, Library and Archives, the institution responsible for preserving documents representing all versions of Canadian history and making those documents accessible to Canadians —something it has done since 1872, in a way that, prior to 2004, was widely admired around the world — has been left out of the equation. More than this, its budgets have been usurped: the Conservative government spent over $100 million promoting the War of 1812 and the new Museum of History during the same period of time that LAC funding was slashed.

There are many ways of interpreting history; many possible visions, and it is writers who present the most compelling ones. If their access to the raw ‘facts’ is in any way diminished, so too are the ways in which we can individually and collectively know our own country.

When I asked Andrew Cash, a Toronto MP and culture critic for the NDP, about the situation at LAC, he spoke of the importance to Canadian democracy of institutions such as the CBC and LAC functioning professionally and independently. What he is essentially saying is that people need to have access to the information they need, to make their own informed decisions about the past, present and future. With government today actively involved in the business of shaping opinion through history as storytelling it’s more important than ever that those Canadians who want to indulge their “learned curiosity” and ”follow their rational pursuits” be extended “the most liberal and unlimited assistance in this respect.” The Conservative government is spending millions of dollars to set up a museum devoted to telling one version of our history. They should spend a similar amount putting right what’s gone wrong so that future generations will be able to discover and tell all the others.