08 November 2014

LAC Departmental Performance Report 2013–2014

What did Library and Archives Canada achieve last fiscal year? That's what we expect to learn in reading an annual report.

Some of the highlights:

  • LAC acquired 76 private archival holdings, nearly 150,000 publications, and more than 1,100 websites. In addition, 1,583 government transfers were recorded.
  • Began processing the service files of members enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) during the First World War, to be completed by the end of 2015–2016.
  • 50,000 descriptions added to the Portrait Portal.
  • LAC and its partners digitized over 17 million pages of the collection, that is, more than were digitized in the previous six years combined.
  • In 2013–2014, staff responded to an average of over 8,000 requests each month. 
  • LAC signed two major collaborative agreements with Ancestry.ca and Canadiana.org.

The document admits that LAC is only partly achieving the objective of acquiring the infrastructure and the new skills it needs to manage documentary heritage in the 21st century.

Human resources (full-time equivalents [FTEs]) employed were 885 in 2013-14 which is 25 more than planned.

Expenditures for LAC in 2013-14 was $100.8 million, down from $118.9 million the previous year.

Further spending cuts are planned, down to $96 million in the current fiscal year and $93 million in 2015-16.

You can read the full report at http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/about-us/departmental-performance-reports/departmental-performance-report-2013-2014/Pages/dpr-toc-mess-sec1.aspx

Comment
LAC was preoccupied in the first part of the year removing a disastrous National Librarian and Archivist and under interim leadership for the remainder of the year. Unsurprising then that their is an unremarkable report with a focus on maintaining work on long-term mission.
The word modernization so associated with the ancien regime is nowhere to be found. "Whole of Society Approach" only appears twice, which is two times too often for the bad taste the phrase leaves in the mouth.


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