National Library, Archives to merge; legislation in works for this winter

Legislation could be before Parliament to merge the National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada by this winter, and a head of the new institution should be appointed by next summer, says Canada's chief archivist, Ian Wilson.On October 2, Canadian Heritage announced that it would merge the two cultural institutions in a move staff say will create a stronger entity to deal with the challenges of digital content. The merger is a recognition that there is an increasing overlap in the institutions' mandates, and that users are increasingly demanding materials in digital form that are currently spread across many institutions.Susan Haigh, in charge of program development for the digital Library of Canada, says the combined strengths of the two institutions are needed to meet demand. "We need to merge how we're presenting, how the user is finding those collections and how they're finding the content that has been digitized within these collections. An integration at the access level will be a goal," she says."It was a choice that the two institutions have chosen to take. Not a merger - I would say that they're looking to form something stronger than the two would have been separately, or together just strictly combined. I think the idea is to create something that is a knowledge institution for the 21st century. I'm not sure, at this point, that we know exactly what that needs to be," she adds."In the digital realm, I think…that they've realized it doesn't really matter to users where content is coming from, who is responsible for the content."Wilson picks up the theme in an interview with Canadian NEW MEDIA. "It's an integration, but it's also the creation of a new institution. If all we do is put the two together, we haven't accomplished anything…We want to create the information institution of the 21st century," he says."We're taking the point of view, really, of Canadians, of trying to get around the idea that these institutions, somehow, only serve the professions, that we only serve academics. For Canadians, they don't frankly care if their information comes from a library or from an archives. They're looking for authentic information, which we have. They're looking for reliable information and they want to be able to put it all together."Wilson says the integration is a natural fit, as the two institutions have already run joint projects online. He notes that graduate programs in library and archive training have already begun to merge as schools deal with the trend toward digitization.While about 30,000 to 40,000 people physically visit the Archives each year, as many as three million people hit the web site annually. Thematically, much of the content being sought is shared between the Archives and Library, and Wilson says a new institution can best serve users by linking content and even creating portals that bring in thematically-related multimedia content, possibly linked to digitized content held by other institutions - something Canadian Heritage is currently looking at in its Canadian Culture Online Program (CCOP).Wilson and Library staff are unable to say whether the two institutions combined will have a bigger budget. "At this point," he says, "there are no commitments…We've been told we'll be provided with new tools to allow us to reach all Canadians and to carry out this preservation. We'll be looking at a broader mandate. Implicit in there the suggestion is...that this is not a budget exercise."Government estimates for 2002-2003 list the National Archives as having a $52.8 million budget and the Library with $36.66 million. For at least two years, the two institutions have shared an IT department as well as administrative structure. The two are among the heaviest users of CCOP funding.It's unknown who will head the new institution, which has yet to be named, but Wilson cedes that he's heard the rumour that he will remain in charge while Roch Carrier, chief librarian, will secure a Senate spot. Wilson won't confirm or deny the scuttlebutt.

National Library, Archives to merge; legislation in works for this winter

Broadcast | October 16, 2002

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