Nature's Past Episode 041: Closing Federal Libraries

dc.contributor.authorKheraj, Sean
dc.date.accessioned2022-03-07T02:25:45Z
dc.date.available2022-03-07T02:25:45Z
dc.date.issued2014-02-03
dc.description.abstractIn 2012, the Canadian federal government began closing and consolidating many of its departmental libraries. More than a dozen research libraries have closed at Parks Canada, Environment Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Foreign Affairs, Citizenship and Immigration, Human Resources and Skills Development, the National Capital Commission, Intergovernmental Affairs, Public Works and Government Services, Canada Revenue Agency, Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, and Canadian Heritage (click here for a timeline of closures). In December, the government began to close all but four of its eleven Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries. News reports across the country showed startling images of books and other documents lying in dumpsters with rumors that others may have been burned. The culling of these libraries involved what has been described as a haphazard free-for-all with members of the public and industry scooping up abandoned books and valuable so-called “grey literature,” unique internal government publications. The process of library consolidation and closure seems to have happened so quickly that books that were still out on loan were never recalled. And beyond the loss of material, we still do not know the extent of the personnel losses. As library staff get laid off, valuable human knowledge vanishes along with the books. One thing that stands out in this troubling story is the degree to which the library closures have targeted scientific and environmental research branches of the government. These libraries housed historical research materials of great relevance to Canada’s environmental history. As such, they are likely to have a detrimental impact on our ability to know about the past. We decided then to find out more about this issue by speaking with Andrew Nikiforuk, a writer and journalist for thetyee.ca who has written extensively on this topic. I also sat down with a panel of environmental historians to get their take on the potential impact these closures might have on Canadian environmental history. Please be sure to take a moment to review this podcast on our iTunes page and to fill out a short listener survey here.en_US
dc.identifier.citationKheraj, Sean. “Episode 41: Closing Federal Libraries” Nature’s Past: Canadian Environmental History Podcast. 3 February 2014.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10315/39167
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherNetwork in Canadian History and Environmenten_US
dc.rightsAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International*
dc.rights.publisherhttps://niche-canada.org/2014/02/03/natures-past-episode-41-closing-federal-library/en_US
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/*
dc.subjectNature's pasten_US
dc.subjectfisheriesen_US
dc.subjectlibraryen_US
dc.subjectgrey literaturesen_US
dc.subjectresearch methodsen_US
dc.titleNature's Past Episode 041: Closing Federal Librariesen_US
dc.typeRecording, oralen_US

Files

Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
natures-past41.mp3
Size:
41.9 MB
Format:
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, audio compression format, audio file format
Description:
License bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
No Thumbnail Available
Name:
license.txt
Size:
1.83 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description:

Collections