Last week I published a brief article at http://goo.gl/iAqlk about the Canadian Association of University Teachers' new effort to launch a national campaign to Save Library and Archives Canada, often referred to as "LAC." Admittedly, I didn't know the agency needed "saving." However, the Canadian Association of University Teachers seems to believe that "saving" is required.
Yesterday, Canadian Association of University Teachers executive director James Turk hosted a news conference at Parliament Hill and lashed out at what he says is LAC's lack of interest in buying rare books and artifacts. He stated, "Our nation's artistic, historical and cultural heritage is at stake.".
"Genealogists, historians, researchers, graduate students, aboriginal communities and the general public are all affected by what is happening at LAC."
According to the association, LAC spending on documents is down 35 per cent, compared with 20 years ago, and 48 positions - including many archivists and historians - have been cut since 2004. Archivist positions remaining vacant, he said, include specialists in newspapers, cartography, moving images and sound archives, government archives and art and photo archives.
The Conservative government reportedly is planning at least $12 million more in cuts to LAC over the next three years.
You can read more in an article by Chris Cobb in the Ottawa Citizen at http://goo.gl/K9jDa.
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