Library and Archives Canada Unveils 2016–2019 Three-Year Plan

Library and Archives Canada (LAC) has published a three-year plan outlining its priorities and activities up to 2019:

"The plan is based on consultations with clients, partners and employees. From June to December 2015 we obtained feedback from our most active clients during a consultation meeting and four focus groups; we held five employee consultation sessions; we conducted a survey of website users; and we held a formal consultation session with our Stakeholders Forum—the 12 Canadian professional associations with which we have close relationships. Furthermore, our plan is based on a careful examination of the major current trends resulting from the rapid changes that are occurring in our environment. Finally, the three-year plan sets out what LAC will accomplish in the coming years to meet the expectations of Canadians as effectively and inclusively as possible."

The plan describes how the institution will respond to emerging trends in technology and knowledge production and defines the partnerships it intends to build or further develop to pursue strategies in areas such as digitization and preservation of Canada's documentary heritage.

One interesting dimension of the document is its definition of a series of  "expected results".

Examples include:

• Digitize 40 million pages in three years, including the 650,000 files of the Canadian Expeditionary Force that will be available online
•  Make one million pages of government records available each year by the block review process
• Assess and process 10 additional kilometres of archives so that they are discoverable for users
• Ensure that LAC's website continues to be one of the top ten most visited federal government sites
• Optimize our tools so that 95% of traffic to the LAC website results from a referral by a major search engine such as Google
•  Start to build a new state-of-the-art facility for preserving and providing access to the LAC's textual records
• Preserve 100% of LAC's digital acquisitions using a digital curation platform
• Set up a secretariat to manage implementation of a National Digitization Strategy
• Reach 10 agreements with new partners by 2019, including academia, non-profit organizations, the private sector, provincial institutions and other public institutions such as public libraries
• Allow the public to help enhance information related to two collections per year
• Have 10 Canadian representatives on the major international documentary heritage committees, including the International Council on Archives, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and the International Internet Preservation Consortium