Church archives under siege

Federal funding cuts to Library and Archives Canada (LAC) may severely restrict libraries’ ability to make accessible the original documents that chronicle Canadian history.

“This constitutes an attack on one of Canada’s most important cultural institutions,” said James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) in a press release. A campaign to save LAC has been launched by CAUT.

The cuts will affect local archivists working in communities and dioceses. “Many small archives have depended on grants from LAC to carry out their work,” says Laurel Parson, assistant archivist at General Synod Archives in Toronto.
Many archival projects scheduled for summer 2012 had to be cancelled after the federal budget cuts were announced in April.