Catherine A. Bailey 

Highlights

Early graduate of the University of British Columbia (UBC) Master of Archival Studies Program; career spent at the National Archives of Canada (NA), later Library and Archives Canada (LAC); her work, scholarly writing, and participation in the ACA has advanced understanding of both electronic and government records. 

Education and Background 
Catherine Bailey received an Honours BA in Canadian History from UBC in 1986. During her undergraduate summers she worked as an archival assistant at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. She then went on to complete her Master of Archival Studies (1988) at UBC, where her thesis dealt with the application of archival theory to machine readable records. For her MAS practicum, she worked as a records analyst for the Government of British Columbia’s Records        Management Branch in 1987.  

Professional Career 
After graduating, Catherine Bailey began working at the National Archives of Canada in 1988, serving as a government records archivist in a variety of portfolios including health and welfare, immigration, transportation, justice, and security. An early practitioner of the macro-appraisal methodology developed at the NA in the 1990s, she also participated in the InterPARES (International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems) Project from 1999 to 2001, conducting a case study for the Authenticity Task Force on the Indian Registration System of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. During the latter part of her LAC career, she served in several senior advisory roles in the government records disposition program. She retired as Senior Lead Archivist in 2019. 

Contributions to the Profession 
A member of ACA since 1985, Catherine Bailey has served the association in a number of capacities. She was a member of ACA’s Select Committee on Electronic Records (1990-1992) and a founding member of the Special Interest Section on Electronic Records (1992); a founding co-editor and later Editor of the ACA Website (1996-2003); and as Archivaria General Editor (2007-2008). Some of her greatest contributions to Archivaria were the development and implementation of e-Archivaria (2004-2006) and the initial creation of the journal’s operational guidelines (2008), updated versions of which continue to support Archivaria’s ongoing operations.  

Bailey has written and presented on archival topics, predominantly appraisal and the development and practice of macro-appraisal within the Canadian federal government, as well as on archival theory and electronic records. She has also supported international archival associations, providing a case study to the International Records Management Trust (IRMT) Managing Public Sector Records training program in 1999, and serving as a Regional Rapporteur for the Association of Commonwealth Archivists and Records Managers’ (ACARM) Archival Legislation for Commonwealth Countries project in 2000. 

Honours, Awards and Recognition  

• ACA Fellow, 2024  
• Archives Association of Ontario James J. Talman Award, 2012 (for “imaginative and innovative contributions to the advancement of Ontario’s archival community”)   
• LAC Professionalism Award, 2005  
• ACA Membership Recognition Award, 2004 
• UBC School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (now UBC I-School) Willard Ireland Prize, 1988 (awarded to an outstanding student in Archival Studies)  

Further Information  

• Bailey, Catherine A. 2013. “Past Imperfect? Reflections on the Evolution of Canadian Federal Government Records Appraisal”.Archivaria 75 (April), 5-47. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13432.  
• Bailey, Catherine A. 2013. “Past Imperfect? Reflections on the Evolution of Canadian Federal Government Records Appraisal” Archivaria 75 (April), 5-47. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13432.  

Photo source: photo provided by Catherine Bailey.

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