Guy Berthiaume
Dr. Guy Berthiaume is a Canadian historian specialized in the study of Classical Antiquity. On June 23, 2014, he became the Librarian and Archivist of Canada. Before that, he served for five years as the Chair and Chief Executive Officer of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
A native of Montreal, he earned a doctorate from the Université Paris VIII in 1976, following an M.A. from Université Laval (1973) and a B.A from Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) (1972).
Starting in 1976, the first 20 years of his professional life were dedicated to research administration and university development.
In 1996, he became a professor with UQAM’s history department. After spending a year at the helm of UQAM’s Office of Partnerships (1999), he was appointed in 2000 to serve as Director of the Canadian Students’ House at the Cité internationale universitaire de Paris.
In 2002, he was recruited by Université de Montréal to become Assistant Vice-President and Chief of Staff to the Rector. In March 2003, he was appointed Vice-President, Development and Public Affairs.
August 2008 marked his return to UQAM, where he held the position of Vice-President, Research and Creation. In this capacity, he was responsible for the development of scientific and artistic activities at UQAM, as well as for international relations.
From June, 2009, to June, 2014, he was Chair and CEO of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. That institution includes a major public library—the Grande Bibliothèque—a preservation centre, and 10 archives centres.
From 2010 to 2014, he served as Secretary General of the Réseau francophone numérique (RFN), an organization that includes 22 heritage libraries from member countries of the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie. And in May 2015, he was elected to the Steering Committee of RFN for a mandate of two years, as the representative of Library and Archives Canada.
In August 2015, he was elected President of the Standing Committee of the National Libraries Section, International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, for a period of 2015-2019. In September of the same year, he was appointed member of the Evaluation Commission of the International Council on Archives for a term of four years.
Guy Berthiaume is a Knight of the Ordre des Palmes académiques of the French Republic (2006). He received the Dan Chase Award from the Canadian Association of University Research Administrators in 2000, and the medal of the Centre Jacques Cartier in 2007. He acted as a Trudeau Foundation Mentor in 2010-2012, and in November 2012, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Université Jean Monnet (Saint-Étienne, France). In December of the same year, he received the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
