Library and Archives Canada - Facilities

Facilities

Until recently, 395 Wellington Street in downtown Ottawa was the central facility and the location where the public was welcomed to access the collections. With the de-emphasis on physical visits, this building now plays a lesser role and the timeliness of services has been reduced (for example, reference by appointment only; lengthy retrieval time for documents).

The Preservation Centre was built at a cost of $89 million, and opened on June 4, 1997. It is a unique building the size of two football fields, which contains 48 climate-controlled preservation vaults, state-of-the-art preservation laboratories, and offices. In 2000, the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada named the LAC Preservation Centre one of the top 500 buildings constructed in Canada during the last millennium.

The Preservation Centre holds many of Canada's most significant documents such as:

• the proclamation of the Canadian Constitution Act, which bears marks left by raindrops during a ceremony on Parliament Hill in April 1982 when Queen Elizabeth II signed it;
• the British North America Act, which features the editing changes made by Canada's first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald;
• the oldest book in the collection, De antiquitate Judaica: De bello Judaico (Antiquities of the Jews and the Judean War), written by first century historian Flavius Josephus and printed in 1470;
• the chair used by world renowned pianist Glenn Gould while he played and recorded.

A Nitrate Film Preservation Facility is being constructed at 3701 Carling Avenue, Communications Research Centre Campus, Shirley's Bay, on the outskirts of Ottawa, to house Canada's cellulose nitrate film collection, which contains 5,575 film reels dating back to 1912, including some of the first Canadian motion pictures and photographic negatives. The material is highly sensitive and requires precise temperatures for its preservation. This facility will be an eco-designed building, featuring a "green" roof that will provide better insulation and minimize energy expenditures.

A Collection Storage Facility on Highway 50, Gatineau, Quebec, to house the preservation and newspaper collections, will feature a high-density shelving system with a suitable environment to better protect Canada's published heritage. This high-density shelving system will greatly increase storage capacity.