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Readers Response to the Implémentation of User Fees at the National Archives

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Canadian Historical Association Bulletin

Readers

Response

to the

Implémentation

of

User

Fees

at

the National Archives

An article by Ed Rea announcing that the National Archives of Canada soon planned to charge for its services prompted a reaction by our readers. Some, like Mr. Dagneau, followed orders and conveyed their outrage to their fédéral MP.

[Letter to Suzanne Duplessis, MP for Louis Hébert, House of Commons] (...) This is the limit! After taxing books and magazines, the

Government you support plans to force people to pay for conducting historical research! Ifs unthinkable!

Unspeakable!

(...) On top of paying personal income tax and tax on everything else, now 111 hâve to pay even more to research the history of my country! Ifs Ludicrous!

C.-H. Dagneau

As reported in the Fall 1 992 issue of the CHA Bulletin, Treasury Board has ordered the National Archives of Canada to implement user fees by Spring 1993. Since the writing of Dr. Rea's article, the NAC made a detailed présentation of just what is under considération before the

National Archives Researchers' Forum, an organization which acts to channel information and opinion between the NAC and its clientèle. The NAC, after receiving a report from an external consultant retained to explore the implémentation of user fees, has issued a list of 23 key services earmarked for potential levies. Recommendations

include an annual charge for registra­ tion (the issuance of a researchers' pass), published finding-aids, general publications, continued photocopy fees (at "market costing"), and perhaps most déplorable, fees for consulting an archivist. These charges, coupled with delays in major capital projects such as the construction of the new

Gatineau holding facility, and the con­ version of the West Memorial Building for expanded archives use, may resuit in considérable frustration for those intending to avail themselves of NAC resources. More than a governmental exercise in "belt-tightening" during the midst of a recession, these proposed user fees represent a dramatic philo- sophical shift in attitudes relating to the delivery of public services. These deci­ sions will cause notable hardship among the Canadian historical com- munity, especially independent researchers working outside of acade­ mie institutions, those marginally affili- ated to such institutions, and students. It should be noted that neither National Archivist, Dr. Jean-Pierre Wallot, nor his staff, are pleased with this dégradation in services. For histo­ rians, the message should be obvious, failure to respond will, in ail probabili- ty, ensure that user fees become a way of life at the NAC. And it won't stop at these initial schedules! While visions of researchers entering the NAC's reading room clutching packets of cash, needed to retrieve their requests for microfilm reels or archivai boxes, or desperately typing that last reference while simultaneously drop- ping quarters into a electrical meter powering their laptops, may be (for now) exaggerated, there is certainly no cause for complacency. While it is

unlikely that the decision to introduce user fees will be rescinded, the extent of such fees is still subject to debate... Those who hâve recently ventured to the British Public Records Office will understand only too well the consé­ quences of a government determined to pare back its support for the human­ ises and social sciences — extremely limited operating hours, a paucity of qualified staff, and user fees for every­ thing other than the wan smile of the commissionaire at the réception desk. This should not be allowed to happen here!

Peter Mclnnis, Queen's University

I think we ail agréé that the time has corne when government expenditures hâve grown well beyond what

Canadians are willing and able to pay in taxes...If good scholars, graduate or under-graduate, want to use the archives, surely they can then make out a strong case to approach spon­ sors for grants which would cover these expenditures. ...The government has either eliminated or reduced pay- ments to many other organizations and their activities. I think that we, in the membership, should réalisé this and give them some support rather than take the opposite approach of deploring such charges which are con- templated at the archives. We will ail be better off if we try to co-operate together rather than lobby for exemp­ tions.

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