Who we are and what we have

Understand the role of national archives and libraries. Get an overview of what is and isn’t available in the collection.

On this page

National archives

National archives collect and preserve materials that help document and interpret the country’s history.

They include different types of records such as:

  • letters
  • diaries
  • government and business documents
  • photographs
  • audio recordings
  • maps
  • artwork

These records might represent private or public citizens; private, public or volunteer organizations; or government departments, committees or commissions.

One of the key roles of a national archives is to give the public access to these records by organizing, cataloguing and describing the holdings in ways that make them easy to find and view.

National libraries

National libraries act as permanent collections of information for a country. In Canada’s national library, information about our country’s history is made available through the collection and preservation of books, serials like magazines and newspapers, music and much more. One of the key roles of a national library is to provide the public with access to these materials by acquiring and cataloguing them.

For our collection, we acquire materials written or published by Canadians or about Canada. LAC collects two copies of everything published in Canada, including books, magazines and audiovisual material. We also collect rare books, early editions and related print material.

These publications must be viewed onsite at our Ottawa location and are not available to browse like at your local public library.

The difference between archives and libraries

For the most part, archives hold unpublished materials, such as private records, or records that are not otherwise normally shared with the public. Individual archival holdings (called “fonds”) may include some previously published documents such as newspaper clippings, organizational histories or annual reports. Libraries mostly contain published materials like books, magazines and newspapers.

About our collection

The collection by the numbers

The Library and Archives Canada collection is the shared documentary heritage of Canadians. Assembled over the past 150 years, the collection includes the following:

  • over 20 million books published in various languages—the fifth-largest library collection in the world!
  • government and private textual records that, if you were to put all the pages next to each other, would stretch for more than 250 linear kilometres
  • over three million architectural drawings, plans and maps
  • census records from 1640 to 1931
  • about five billion megabytes of information in electronic format
  • 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 comprising the largest collection of Canadian sheet music in the world
  • newspapers from across Canada, from dailies to student and community newspapers

What we don’t have

There are certain records that we do not hold, including

  • recent archival records about life events like birth, adoption, marriage, divorce (after 1968), death and wills—these are held by provincial governments
  • most archival records that are held in other memory institutions, like provincial or local archives or churches
  • immigration records after 1935
  • recent governmental human resources records—these records will be held by the departments that created them
  • census records after 1931
  • materials not published in Canada, unless there was a large component dealing with Canada

Accessing the collection or getting help

You can access our digital or physical collections or get help through our website or in person.