As a result of water damage and poor climate control, the National Library of Canada has lost more than 25,000 items worth an estimated $2 million ($1.28 million U.S.), according to National Librarian Roch Carrier. “We are losing our national heritage,” he said in the October 4 Toronto Star. “We are losing the work of our writers, historians, musicians, and journalists. It is difficult to put a price on those treasures.”
Since 1993, the library, which is spread out over six buildings in Ottawa, has had 68 accidents involving floods, leaks, and broken pipes. Carrier said that there were 10 accidents in the last nine months, including a broken radiator February 25 that wet or dampened 2,643 items in the Canadian history section, some already affected in an earlier incident, according to the October 4 National Post newspaper.
The library’s newspaper collection is in a downtown basement that is not climate controlled and gets so hot in the summer that the fire alarm goes off regularly, Carrier said.
Canadian Heritage Minister Sheila Copps told the Post that she thought most of the documents at risk had been moved to a new $20-million National Archives building in Gatineau, Québec, and added that a joint proposal for a new $300-million building for the library and archives had been submitted. However, she warned that a permanent solution might be slow in coming, given the “financial pressures that the country is facing.”
Posted October 8, 2001.