Sandra Singh

General manager of Arts, Culture, and Community Services

Sandra joined the City of Vancouver as General Manager, Arts, Culture, and Community Services in April 2018.

Prior to this, she served as the Chief Librarian of Vancouver Public Library. During her seven-year tenure as Chief Librarian, the Library launched innovative new services such as the Inspiration Lab, the Sun Life Financial Musical Instrument Lending Library, the Inspiration Pass, and extensive digital collections,  as well as opened the City's first indigenous named facility, the nə́c̓aʔmat ct Strathcona Branch Library. 

She joined VPL after serving as the Director of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia where she led the Centre's work on both rural and remote community engagement and as an interdisciplinary centre for learning on campus. Prior to UBC, she worked at the Vancouver Public Library, first as the Director of Branches East/South and Outreach Services, followed by Director of Systems and Special Projects.

While at VPL as a Senior Director, Sandra served as the National Director of the HRSDC-funded national demonstration project Working Together, which sought to evolve new ways of working with socially-excluded community members, led the VPL website redesign process, and initiated and ran the province-wide Beyond Words program which captured the social impacts of public library service in BC. Prior to VPL, Sandra served as Port Moody Public Library's Manager of Library Services, as a Cybrarian at a Vancouver-based online learning community Suite101.com, and as librarian in both Texas and Alberta.

Sandra is currently appointed to the CBC/Radio-Canada Board of Directors. Most recently, she served as a Commissioner on Canada Council for the Arts' Public Lending Right Commission, as Chair of Library and Archives Canada's National Heritage Digitization Strategy Steering Committee, and as President of the Canadian Library Association. She also led the establishment of and was a founding Board member of the national not-for-profit Centre for Equitable Library Access which seeks to ensure people with print disabilities have access to published content.