A staff interchange with Library and Archives Canada.
Berko, Monica
In August 2006, I left Australia to work for Library and Archives
Canada (LAC) for 11 months as Manager of Strategic Initiatives in their
Information Technology Branch. The Government of Canada has an
Interchange Canada program which supports the temporary exchange of
staff between their federal agencies and other institutions both within
Canada and internationally.
My participation in meetings of the International Internet
Preservation Consortium (IIPC) from its inception in 2003 led to the
development of personal contacts and information exchanges with IT staff
from a number of national libraries and archives, including LAC. This
ultimately resulted in an invitation to work as a consultant there for a
period of time, with the objective that I would bring in a fresh
perspective and an awareness of digital library initiatives taking place
in other national memory institutions, and in particular the NLA.
It was a wonderful opportunity for me both professionally and
personally. I believe that the short-term disruption caused by my
absence from my post at the NLA will be more than compensated for over
the longer term by increased collaboration with an institution whose
mandate and environment is very similar to ours. Peter Bruce, the Chief
Technology Officer for LAC, and Leigh Swain, the Manager of the Research
and Standards section, supported my travel to a number of events in
North America and to IIPC meetings in Paris and San Francisco. I also
worked with staff in their Strategic Office and was asked to write some
reports as well as contribute to others. It was a wonderful opportunity
to have the time to do lots of reading, research and discussion, knowing
that it was of benefit both to LAC and to the NLA. My French language
studies were also supported while I was there. Like all federal agencies
in Canada, LAC--or Bibliotheque et Archives Canada (BAC)--is a bilingual
institution, and staff are required to be bilingual to varying levels
depending upon their role in the organisation.
LAC is a federal portfolio agency created by the Parliament of
Canada in 2004, when it merged the National Archives of Canada (founded
in 1872 as the Public Archives of Canada) and the National Library of
Canada (founded in 1953). It is an agency of the Department of Canadian
Heritage and its director is known as the Librarian and Archivist of
Canada. The first and current holder of this title is the former
National Archivist, Ian E. Wilson. After the merger there are now
slightly more than 1160 employees. Their collecting mandate is broader
than ours as it also covers federal government records, the national
sound and film collections and the national portrait collection.
The main building is located in Wellington Street, Ottawa, next
door to the Supreme Court and close to Parliament House. This building
was formerly the National Library of Canada and is located on the Ottawa
River, which forms the border between Ontario and Quebec. All the
services to the public are located in this main building and about
one-third of LAC staff work here. The remaining staff have been
relocated from various buildings in the vicinity to a single new
10-storey office block in Gatineau, Quebec, approximately 13 kilometres
north-east of Ottawa. Public transport and other facilities such as
proximity to shops and restaurants are not very good, as this is the
first government agency to be located in this area.
These new offices are opposite the Gatineau Preservation Centre
which was opened in 1997 and is a state-of-the-art preservation
facility, with three stories of concrete vaults topped with a floor
containing preservation laboratories and digitisation facilities. This
inner building is surrounded by an outer shell of glass and steel,
creating an environmental buffer zone. Archival records as well as rare
books, maps, photographs and paintings are stored in the vaults. The
National Portrait Collection is stored here waiting for a permanent
exhibition space.
Their Information Technology Branch is considerably larger than the
IT division at the NLA, with three times the number of staff and
contractors and three times the budget. Due to the urgent need to
refresh many of their legacy systems in a short time frame, a business
case was presented to their Treasury Board for additional one-off
funding for an IT systems refresh of approximately A$27 million. This
has been granted over three years beginning this financial year, and
they have commenced redeveloping their existing library management
systems and their national union catalogue infrastructure. This is a
large and complex project, and their choices of products and
technologies and the resulting outcomes will be of considerable interest
to us.
They will also be building a Trusted Digital Repository for their
digital collections during this same time frame, and the development of
a Virtual Loading Dock to process deposited electronic publications is
already close to completion. Legal deposit legislation in Canada has
been amended to cover electronic publications, and this came into effect
on 1 January this year. They are in advance of us in this area and in
the systems and tools they have implemented to manage their archival
collections. However, there are other areas where we have more advanced
IT capability--services like Libraries Australia, Music Australia and
Picture Australia, and the access we provide to our digital collections.
The benefit of collaboration is thus obvious to both our institutions.
In 2005 LAC initiated a dialogue with the goal of framing a
Canadian Digital Information Strategy (CDIS). The vision for this
strategy is that Canada's digital information assets are created,
managed and preserved to ensure that a significant Canadian digital
presence and record is available to present and future generations, and
that Canada's position in a global digital information economy is
enhanced. Through a series of meetings, LAC consulted with over 200
stakeholder organisations from a variety of sectors, culminating in a
National Summit in December 2006. At the summit a broad consensus on the
elements of a National Strategy emerged, leading to the development of a
document which is due for release for public comment this month. I
believe this document and the processes behind its development will be a
good model for the NLA to follow.
Living in Ottawa and experiencing all that the region has to offer
scenically and culturally was a great experience for me and my family.
Situated on the border between Ontario and Quebec, and with historically
high levels of immigration, Ottawa is a great place to sample the
cultural and linguistic diversity of Canada and admire the civility and
tolerance of their multi-cultural society. There is a number of ski
fields in the nearby Gatineau Hills, less than 30 minutes from
LAC's offices, with night-skiing facilities and season passes for
lift tickets that are unbelievably low-priced from an Australian
perspective. The Rideau Canal, which is a 202-kilometre waterway
connecting the Ottawa River to Lake Ontario, provides an
8-kilometre-long ice skating rink in late winter stretching from
downtown Ottawa to the first set of canal locks. Their War Museum,
Museum of Civilisation and National Art Gallery are some of the
attractions, along with their magnificent parliamentary buildings that
pull crowds of visitors from all over the country and foreign tourists
as well. The Federal Capital region, which includes the city of Gatineau
in Quebec as well as Ottawa in Ontario, has a population of over one
million and sustains a champion ice hockey team--the Ottawa Senators.
During my time at LAC I recognised many initiatives and projects
suitable for collaboration, and I hope that more staff exchanges will
occur. As we emphasise collaboration as a means to further our
objectives in a more global environment, there is the desire to
collaborate more with partners, but making it happen can be difficult.
Having the personal connections between staff that arise from such
interchanges can break down some of the barriers.
Monica Berko
Director, Collections Infrastructure
