Sylvain Bélanger, the Senior Director General, Chief Information Officer, & Chief Data Officer for Library & Archives Canada Helping Canadians

1. Helping Canadians Know the Distant Past
and Recent History
Meet Sylvain Bélanger, the Senior Director General, Chief
Information Officer, and Chief Data Officer for Library and
Archives Canada (LAC), which serves as the guardian of Canada's
distant past and recent history. As the CIO, Sylvain is responsible for
leading and supporting LAC's digital business operations and all aspects
of preservation for access of digital and analog collections and digital
transformation activities.
Sylvain started his journey at LAC in 2005 as the Chief of Staff to the
Librarian and Archivist of Canada. He has also been the Corporate
Secretary and Director of Collections Management. He oversaw the
business side of digital before 2021 for six years as Director General of
the Digital Operations and Preservation Branch. Sylvain was the driving
force behind the creation of LAC's Vision for 2030 during the first two
years of the pandemic. Prior to joining LAC, Sylvain worked in several
public safety agencies, private sector companies, and the Canadian
Forces.
"LAC was a newly created organization from the merger of the national
library and nationalarchives. At the time, I saw an opportunity to apply
the experience I had gained from my time in public safety and national
defense, as well as my education in leadership, to a very different kind of
organization that had a history dating to the 1800s, yet was also one of
the newest organizations in the government of Canada following the
merger of the two organizations,"- Sylvain remembered.
Presently Sylvain serves as the Vice-President of DPI Canada. This
volunteer not-for-profit organization promotes the development of
public sector professionals and the effective application of IM/IT in the
Government of Canada and other public sector jurisdictions. Along with
other positions, he has previously held the positions of Vice Chair and

2. Treasurer of the International Internet Preservation Consortium, and is a
a member of the IFLA Section on Information Technology.
A Unique Organization
Library and Archives Canada, more commonly known as LAC, is a
federal government institution that was created in 2004 by merging the
National Library and the National Archives.LAC's unique collection
now contains over 20 million books published in various languages, over
250 linear kilometers of government and private textual records, over
three million architectural drawings, plans, and maps, 30 million
photographic images, including prints, negatives, slides, and digital
photos, more than 90,000 films, more than 550,000 hours of audio and
video recordings, over 425,000 works of art, approximately 550,000
items constituting the most extensive collection of Canadian sheet music
in the world, and national newspapers from across Canada, from dailies
to student and community newspapers.
A Strong Team Culture
LAC has a strong professional culture of experts in the library and
archival fields, conservation, information management, mass
digitization, as well as digital and analog preservation. Under Sylvain's
leadership, the team has coalesced around its vision and the new digital
structure. The key has been creating the proper environment for
professional growth, aligning working practices across the lines of
business, and having clearly defined purposes and goals that they review
and emphasize regularly.
A Socially Responsible Organization
As a federal government institution, LAC always considers its impact on
communities and its environmental and social responsibilities. For
example, LAC's new Gatineau 2 storage facility project is a sustainable
building with objectives aligned to meet the Government of Canada's
priorities to invest in sustainable federal infrastructure and Canadian

3. culture. It is the first Net Zero Carbon archival center in the Americas.
LAC also delivers programs and projects related to First Nations, Inuit,
and Métis Nation experiences. This includes funding to support First
Nations, Inuit, and Métis Nation organizations throughout Canada to
identify, digitize and preserve the Indigenous language and culture
recordings, and build digitization and preservation capacity in their
communities.
Current Market Trends
Sylvain believes change is inevitable to meet the constantly evolving
needs of Canadians. For LAC, this involves enhancing its digital
capabilities and gradually altering its in-person and online services to
enable Canadians to access their national history from any location. The
organization released its Vision 2030 in the spring of 2022, outlining the
course for the following eight years and beyond.
Vision 2030: Discover. Understand. Connect. -specifies where LAC
wants to go, what it wants to achieve, and how it will get there. The
concept is entirely based on inviting users to discover the collections,
refining diverse voices, interacting with the community, partnering with
the world, supporting Canadians, and preserving their cultural legacy.
Looking at the Future
LAC is committed to using its collections to communicate a range of
Canadian cultures and experiences through the most diverse stories, and
access will play a pivotal role in this.
"As CIO, I can say that collaboration across LAC, our efforts to
modernize and replace our legacy technologies and infrastructure, as
well as our work with our colleagues across government, the private and
non-profit sectors, and key international partners will be the catalyst for
change, continuous improvement, and success for us. My team is
building a roadmap that emphasizes our unique needs as Canada's
premiere documentary heritage institution while looking at enterprise-

4. wide solutions with colleagues within the government where it is the
most efficient and effective way to deliver our services,"- explained
Sylvain.