2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the Association of Canadian Archivists—a milestone that offers a unique opportunity to reflect on five decades of archival practice, community-building, and collective professional growth. To celebrate, the ACA Blog team is launching a special interview series to spotlight the voices, experiences, and insights of ACA members past and present through intergenerational conversations. Students and emerging professionals will interview longtime members, offering a space to share personal reflections, institutional memory, and the evolving landscape of archival work in Canada.  

In today’s feature, Dharani Persaud chats with Jean Dryden—former President of the ACA and Editor of Archivaria—for an insightful conversation.

* Image - ACA Conference, Montreal, 1992. © Shelley Sweeney. 

What was the catalyst for you being a founding member of ACA and why did you decide to help start it?  

I began my archival career when I joined what was then the Public Archives of Canada in September of 1972 after my master’s degree. I was just a newbie, the only experience I'd had of archives was to do research in archives, because there was no academic training.You learned on the job. At that point, the only association that archivists had was the archives section of the Canadian Historical Association, because at that point, archives were perceived as a profession of and for historians.I attended it in 1973 and discovered there were other people who did what I did, and that was kind of exciting to realise that I was part of a broader community. Around that time, three archivists in Toronto had been thinking about founding an association and they went coast to coast to meet with various archives and archivists in various provinces to ask whether we thought this was a good idea. And later it was agreed upon that at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in 1975, we would indeed pass a motion.I’m not sure that it can be said that I actually helped to found the ACA, but I was fortunate enough to be present at that meeting, and I was supportive of it. I never imagined that someday we’d celebrate the 50th anniversary, so I'm actually quite thrilled.  

What are some standout memories or milestones from your involvement with the ACA—whether at conferences, committee work, or advocacy efforts? 

There are many things I'm proud of that were done under the auspices of the ACA for the profession as a whole, but one of the things I'm proudest of is that in 1986, when I was the ACA president, we hired an office manager. Up to then it was just volunteers doing work off the sides of our dining room tables, but there was enough administrative work required to run an organization that we really needed some help. We had no office, but we hired a person. I remember at the annual conference, which was in Winnipeg that year, I skipped the baseball game because I was running over the numbers again wondering if we could really afford this.But it was the right decision and the person we hired was really good and took some of the administrative load off the ACA board members so they could focus on other substantive issues. 

For me personally as well, there was a course we had to take that was a qualification to become an archivist, and the requirement for that course was to write a paper on some topic of interest. I picked copyright just because it had a reputation of being very hard and technical and boring, and I thought well, I’ll never look into it on my own, but since I have to write a paper on something, I might as well pick copyright!AndI'm thrilled to say that my paper was in the very first issue Archivaria. At that point, I was far more interested in descriptive standards, but over the yearsI realized I was in fact interested in copyright and so eventually, decades later, I went back to school to get a PhD looking at copyright issues. And now I am a leading educator about copyright among archivists in Canada. I was able to do that within the framework of ACA, and it was that paper that I wrote that kind of opened me to the subject.  

Can you share an archival project or initiative you’ve been involved in that reflects the values or mission of the ACA? 

On the topic of copyright, when ACA first started, we didn't have a standing committee on copyright but there were a couple of occasions when amendments to the Copyright Act were underway, and an ad hoc copyright committee would be appointed. I was usually on the committee to submit our responses, criticisms, suggestions for improvement, and that sort of thing.  

I was also very involved in the first task force funded by SSHRC to actually look into the feasibility and process for developing descriptive standards for Canadian archives. And by golly, we did it! It was recognized that our needs were different from librarians so we couldn't just use library cataloging, but there was also no need for archivists to reinvent the wheel. So that knowledge was really helpful in the adaptation of library standards to archival material.  

One last one is that I was the editor of Archivaria for five issues. Archivaria is one of the flagship publications of the archival profession worldwide, very well respected globally, and it was an honor to be editor.  

In your view, what have been the most significant changes in the archival profession in Canada over the past 50 years? 

I think a significant achievement is the development of descriptive standards, which I mentioned earlier. But I'd say the biggest one is the establishment of graduate programs to train archivists. None of us that were at that founding meeting would be hired today with the qualifications we had. But now we've got a well-established master’s degree in various forms, depending on the institution, and it's the standard qualification to enter the profession. Underlying that is the clear understanding that archivists are information professionals in their own right, and not just handmaidens to historians, or a subspecies of librarian.When I look back on my career, I just think it is absolutely wonderful that there's now recognized graduate level criteria for entry into the profession.  

How would you describe the legacy of the ACA in shaping the archival landscape in Canada—and what does being part of this 50-year history mean to you personally? 

I think the ACA has, of course, shaped the archival landscape in Canada, but also internationally, both with the reputation of Archivaria, and with the contribution of Canadian archivists to many international committees. Their work with the ICA has left not just a national legacy, but also a Canadian legacy within the international archival community. 

To me, it's provided a community of professional colleagues and dear friends. You know, you serve on an executive with somebody or on a board, or on a committee – that's kind of a special connection that lasts a lot longer than your tenure on that committee or board. And ACA has enabled me to build and develop the skills to achieve goals, whether they be personal goals or goals on behalf of the profession. It was kind of a practice ground to learn how to chair meetings or build an agenda or you know, just how to move things forward if you have a project. So, for me personally I'd say those two things, community and personal development. 

Looking ahead, what do you hope the ACA will prioritize or continue to build upon in the next 50 years? 

Keeping up with rapidly changing technology is a huge challenge and tied into that is a need for robust continuing education programs, whether the ACA does them or whether maybe the administrator of the academic institution where you got your degree offers some continuing education or professional development. But I see this as really important because technology is moving so fast.It is really hard to catch up to or keep up.  

I guess a second issue, which is one we've never solved properly or effectively, is the need for greater public awareness about what we do. That is, I think, why we all enjoy going to the ACA Conference so much, because everybody understands what we do. You don't have to explain. And it's very nice to be able to talk shop, but we spend too much time talking to ourselves and not enough time on outreach, and I'm probably as bad as anybody, but it's still a problem. So, I would like to see more effort put into that.  

What advice would you offer to early-career archivists or new ACA members who are just starting to engage with the profession? 

Get involved! Join an organization like the ACA, or if your province has a provincial archives association, join that as well. And attend conferences or join a committee if there's a topic you're particularly interested in, just to learn more about the topic, contribute something, and add to your professional network. And don't be shy! Don’t be awestruck by the leaders in the profession, people are happy to be recognized. They'd be thrilled that you came up to talk to them!  

Jean Dryden has many years of experience as a staff archivist and archival administrator in the public and non-profit sectors. Her doctoral dissertation (University of Toronto, 2008) investigated the copyright practices of Canadian archival repositories in making their holdings available online. While a faculty member at the University of Maryland (2008-2011), she completed a grant-funded comparative study of the copyright practices of American repositories. In 2015, she completed a Master of Laws degree specializing in intellectual property at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University. She is a member of the International Council on Archives’ (ICA) Expert Group on Legal Matters, and she represented the ICA at the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Copyright Committee from 2015-2024. She is the author of numerous presentations and publications on copyright issues, including Demystifying Copyright: A Researcher’s Guide to Copyright in Canadian Libraries and Archives, 2nd ed. (2014). A well-known copyright educator, she has presented scores of workshops on copyright to archivists, librarians and educators in Canada and the U.S. 

Dharani Persaud (they/she) is a writer and PhD student in the School of Information at the University of British Columbia. Their research interests centre on Caribbean indenture diaspora studies, the role of memory work in constructions of community, and the subversion and (re)configuring of colonial archives. Dharani is an uninvited settler on the stolen, traditional, and ancestral lands of the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxw.7mesh (Squamish), and lwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples.