Community Digitization as a Strategic Response to Political Change
In recent years, Quebec’s government introduced policies around French language promotion that have created financial and cultural challenges for English universities in the province, including McGill University, founded in the 19th century and historically associated with the Quebec’s English-speaking community. These policies have sparked broader conversations about how institutions like McGill can demonstrate their value and contributions to Quebec’s largely French-speaking society. In this context, McGill Libraries have made it a strategic priority to deepen their engagement with local communities and to contribute more visibly to Quebec’s social and cultural life.
This presentation will explore how these political developments informed McGill Libraries’ community engagement strategy, leading to the creation of a new community digitization partnership program. This initiative aims to partner the Libraries with Quebec non-profit organizations and charities to provide training for institutions that wish to execute their own digitization projects, or to provide in-kind digitization services from the Libraries’ digitization lab. By sharing expertise and resources that many small organizations lack, this program helps the library to position itself as a collaborative partner in the preservation and dissemination of Quebec’s cultural heritage.