The Canadian National Bibliography: 50 years of continuity and change

Abstract

It is a pleasure for me to be here today to share with you the celebration of the 50 th anniversary of Canadiana, Canada’s national bibliography. I speak on behalf of all of my colleagues at the National Library of Canada in saying we are proud of our bibliographic heritage and it is an honour for me to be the person having this opportunity to tell you about the creation and evolution of our national bibliography and some of our hopes for its future. The theme of our session today asks a question: Is bibliography indispensable or redundant? Certainly, in the early days of Canada’s history, there was no question as to the need for bibliographic services. Our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, identified the need for a national library not long after the country was created in 1867. Throughout the decades of the first half of the 20 th century, librarians and researchers repeatedly lobbied the Government of Canada to provide two essential services: bibliographic control of Canadian publications and identification and location of these resources for loan. Given the other more pressing priorities in the years immediately following the second world war, it is a tribute to the government of the day that it approved the creation in 1950 of the Canadian Bibliographic Centre to compile and publish a national bibliography and to create and maintain a national union catalogue