Library & Archives of Canada - Ordering from the UK:

[MERLINV12]

Has anybody got experience of ordering from the Library & Archives of Canada ?? (.pdf's by email).

 

It appears they have the Admissions & Discharge Register for No2 Canadian Stationary Hospital for July 1917.

 

Did the search and think I found what I want, however it states that it does not know how many pages are in the document I want, and asks for me to set a maximum number of pages required. 

 

For me this poses a problem, impossible to guess how many pages there are, and might miss the crucial bit if I set too low, and they also give no indication of cost, I got to the point of Checkout, but went no further, didn't register, because I wasn't sure.

 

Can anyone who has done this, please advise.

 

TIA.

[A Rankin]

I've been ordering CDS and SS pamphlets from them for the last few months. It is a bit hit or miss as you can't specify parts of documents, and there is no indication as to how many pages are in a document. I've generally been lucky as the pamphlets are generally contained in their own archival file and therefore I can estimate how many pages. I've ordered a couple files which were aggregates under a general heading and they varied from 80-260 pages, which came as a bit of a surprise when I was presented with the payment request.

 

The current charge is .40 CAD per page, which compares favorably with other archival institutions. They are taking about 6 weeks per order, which is not far off their 30 business day target.  Here's their official policy: https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/services-public/copy-services/Pages/order-copies4.aspx

 

If you have a pretty firm idea what you want and how many pages it would be then Library and Archives Canada is probably a good bet to order from.  The biggest drawback is not being able to specify parts of files, or have an idea of how many pages are in a file.

 

 

[MERLINV12]

Thanks for the reply , are you required to pay once you get the payment request, especially if it much larger than expected ??

[A Rankin]

I would assume so, given my reading of their terms and conditions. The only defence we have is limiting the number of pages, though that could conceivably cut out the bits we actually want. There is an additional information box in the order that you could try to make note of anything particularly needed in a file, but I don't know if it will be taken into consideration.

 

I've tried to structure my own orders as much as possible by ordering printed material where I know the page count, but some SS pamphlets had multiple versions issued under the same number so its an inexact process. For me, its a better alternative than the price of a ticket from Australia to Canada and a hotel stay, but I hope eventually to have a few days on site to review larger files and selectively copy rather than pick up the freight for a door-stopper aggregation of files.

[MERLINV12]

Many thanks for the info, I have now ordered with a 50 pages limit, so will wait and see.