Under the headline Broken Records, Charlotte Grey has an opinion piece in Saturday’s Globe and Mail in which she laments that “The study of Canada’s recent past has become almost impossible. … Will a new national archives change things for the better?”
The article portrays LAC as an underfunded and understaffed institution whose core mission of providing access to the nation’s documentary heritage is being severely hampered by bureaucratic delays, restrictive legislation, and slow progress on digitization.
That was underlined by the notice on the LAC website in response to a collection search query I first experienced on Friday:
403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.
You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.
Elsewhere, there’s a notice
“You may experience technical difficulties accessing online records. We are working to resolve the problem.”
I think the institution has simply lost touch with what made it a great place to research. Staff are remote physically and intellectually. Where there was once a sense of community amongst users and archivists/librarians, the connection has been eroded over the years and is essentially broken. Much needs to be done to repair the situation and I share Charlotte’s uneasiness with the move to a new facility — will it really improve things?
Indeed, it is a compelling read that she has written. I highly recommend that everyone that can access the Globe and Mail article do so.
I will try to make a copy of mine available to genealogist friends and librarians I know who do not receive the Globe and Mail
Planning a research trip to include Ottawa in 2026 so that this is going to be very relevant