When civilization fails us:

A case study of the efforts by Canadian librarians and archivists to ensure their government honors its

responsibility to provide access to knowledge and information in the face of severe cuts to its national

library’s programs.

Marinus Swanepoel

OUTLINE

1. Introduction

2. What the Canadian Government did

3. The response of the library and information community

4. The tools used

5. Current status

This mandate, legislated under the Library and Archives Canada Act, is considered equivalent to that of the U.S. Library of

Congress or the British Library. “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. Staff at our national archives and library are the stewards of our collective memory.”