Beryl Lapham Anderson was born on April 15, 1925, in Nova Scotia.

She was a Canadian educator and librarian. She earned her B.A. (1946) and M.A. (1949) in classics from Dalhousie University. She began her teaching career in Quebec and Nova Scotia (1946-1949). She was a lecturer in Classics at Dalhousie University from 1950 to 1955 before graduating from McGill University (B.L.S., 1956) and becoming Associate Professor at its Graduate Library School (1956-1973). In 1973, Anderson was appointed Chief of the Library Documentation Centre of the National Library of Canada. In 1980, she received her PhD. from Walden University, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Her major research and publishing work has been in the field of special libraries. Anderson was a long-time member of the Canadian Library Association, the Archaeological Institute of America, the Canadian Institute in Greece and Friends of the Central Experimental Farm, Ottawa, where she volunteered for many years. She enjoyed several trips to excavation sites in Greece and Turkey with the Archaeological Institute.

She died on May 6, 2020, in Ottawa, Ontario.