Directions for Change

Section 1:
What will Library and Archives Canada be?

1.4 A prime learning destination

Learners as a key audience for Canadian content

The preamble to our new legislation states that LAC will contribute to the cultural, social and economic development of Canada as a free and democratic society. A key way in which we will achieve this impact is by reaching and serving Canadians as they learn.

Our collection, services and interpretive capacity furnish LAC with an opportunity to provide a high quality learning experience to learners of all ages, from all cultural backgrounds, and in all parts of Canada. These may be school age or post-secondary students; they may be teachers or academics, guiding others' learning experience; or they may be ordinary Canadians autonomously pursuing a research passion or a casual subject interest.

A commitment to supporting learning requires that we understand the learning process and assess the knowledge requirements of learners, and that we evolve our content, programs, finding aids and services based on feedback from our engagement with learning and teaching communities. To succeed, we need to understand what constitutes a positive learning experience, particularly in the digital information environment, and build the resources we offer around that knowledge.

Content and programs to support school-age and life-long learning

One of the ways Library and Archives Canada will become a prime learning destination is by showcasing some of our most compelling holdings, and targeting interpretive and promotional programs, to kindergarten to grade 12 educators and learners. The collection is rich in primary documents, voices and stories-both familiar and unknown-that provide perspectives on the Canadian experience. We will package these in ways that allow school-age learners to enjoy and draw meaning from them, to understand their content and the context in which they were created.

As educational practices move to enquiry and project-based learning approaches, interaction with other learners, with our resources, and with our staff will be key to the learning experience we provide. We will find ways to allow online learners to select, use, interpret and package our primary sources for their own unique purpose.

How best to serve the adult learner needs to be critically examined. There is no curriculum against which to match life-long learning resources, there is less user research available for us to draw upon, and there is not a distinct market to tap. And yet demographics suggest that Canadians reaching retirement age are a growing body of leisure-time learners.

Learning and teaching resources will be an integral part of access initiatives such as the Canadian Genealogy Centre, the Portrait Gallery of Canada, and our other programs to make known and understood Canada's documentary heritage. While the Web is our primary conduit to learners, we will complement this with onsite programming at our Ottawa-Gatineau venues to further the appeal of LAC as a learning destination. And we will develop travelling exhibitions and displays that can extend our reach beyond the National Capital Region, and physical classroom resources that will complement and strengthen the learning experience we provide via the Web.

Ensuring relevance, awareness and use

Increased focus will be placed on ensuring that educators, students, parents and life-long learners become aware of Canada's documentary heritage as a learning resource. It is not enough to simply mount content on the Web or even to produce well-tailored teaching and learning resources; for these resources to be used to their full potential, LAC must brand itself as a learning destination, and proactively build relationships with other public and non-profit organizations in the field and with education ministry officials, classroom teachers, and academic programs across the country. The commitment of educators will result in repeat classroom use of our content. We will also look for ways in which we can show meaningful support to the key role that schools and public libraries play in fostering learning, supporting literacy and promoting a life-long love of reading.

Finally, LAC will study what role it might play toward national aggregation of educational resources produced by others. As Canadian libraries and archives increasingly produce online educational content, we can encourage the adoption of common standards and best practices to support resource aggregation and interoperability on a national basis.

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