Outside the Box

With the arrival of spring comes another annual renewal – the recruitment of new Board members to the SCAA Board of Directors. Once again, we have openings on our Board of Directors and we are always pleased to get some new faces on the Board. I would encourage anyone who is interested in supporting archives across Saskatchewan to consider putting your name forward for the Board. It’s a great opportunity to meet other archivists, learn more about the issues facing archives, and, of course, volunteer work always looks great on a resume! I’m about to start my fifth year on the Board and I’ve had a wonderful experience. In my time on the Board, I’ve learned about adjudicating grants, reading financial statements, understanding bylaws and policy governance, and explored many other facets of the workings of a province-wide professional organization. If you don’t have experience, don’t worry! Neither did I when I started on the Board. I’ve also had the opportunity to meet people who w

On May 2-3, the Saskatchewan Indigenous Cultural Center hosted the ē-micimināyakik gathering, or the Indigenous museums gathering-- one of the first of its kind to be held in Canada. This gathering addressed many of the challenges and concerns around making accessible, preserving, and respecting both tangible and intangible elements of Indigenous history. ē-micimināyakik roughly translates to "holding on to things for everyone,"  and that was ultimately the idea at the heart of the gathering -- how can we (both as Indigenous and Newcomer curators) hold on to things in a good way, and particularly in a way that meets the needs of those people with whom the thing originated. So, far from being a gathering targeted only at museums, interested participants came from a broad array of backgrounds including libraries and archives (like myself), copyright offices, and other cultural centers. Below I will summarize some of the things I learned (note that this is from the perspecti

On 19 March 2019, 16 participants gathered at the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan in Regina to increase their knowledge of the preservation of audio-visual records, from Donald Johnson, Special Media Archivist. Audio-visual records are a challenge because they require equipment to be accessible. Some of that equipment is becoming harder to find, and in good enough condition to use. The focus was on audio recordings, such as on audio cassette, reels or CDs, and moving images on a variety of media such as video, DVD or Blu-ray, but it also touched on film. There are a wide variety of formats that have been used over time. Many have not been produced with preservation in mind, and many individuals buy them without thinking what archivists would like to preserve. Depending on the acquisition policies of different institutions, certain media may be found in one type of institution and not in others. For example, the records used in radio stations are less likely to be in personal

Ken Dahl of the City of Saskatoon Archives, applied to the SCAA Professional Development fund to attended, in Edmonton March 11-14 , 2019, the "NAAB Masterclass." This is his experience: In 2019, the National Archival Appraisal Board (NAAB), in an attempt to standardize archival appraisals across the country came up with the idea of offering a “Masterclass” to those interested.  Not only is NAAB trying to standardize things, they are also hoping to bring in experienced archivists to become new appraisers and increase the number of practicing appraisers.  In February and March of 2019, NAAB offered three different sessions (of this class) in Fredericton, Edmonton and Ottawa.  I have been doing NAAB appraisals for a number of years now, the last five have been as a practicing NAAB appraiser.  I was the only one at the class who had done any previous appraisals, this appraisal experience was, for the most part, beneficial.   The course itself was very well run, and I f

February 3-9, 2019 is Declared as Archives Week!  The 14th Annual event will once again bring Saskatchewan’s archives into the provincial spotlight as never before! These events by SCAA members may include Celebrity Reader nights, historic film nights, open houses and various types of individual and inter-institutional exhibits that will focus on the abundant sources of Saskatchewan’s history and heritage in archives and Celebrate Archives! The SCAA is eager to help its institutional members in the effort to make Archives Week 2019 a memorable one. To achieve this, SCAA has again produced our popular postcards and bookmarks.

From time-to-time we welcome the input from our friend the Interim Gopher, Bill Armstrong, of the Friends of Saskatchewan Archives (FoSA) in contributing stories and additional insights to "Outside the Box."   Salud! The gopher is so 2018, finally passing along some notes from the meeting of FOSA and PAS folks back in November. At that meeting Madeleine with the Archives reported that in the previous two months or so FOSA volunteers had processed a further 1900 items for the Photo Project. Impressive. At that time Chief Archivist Linda McIntyre had no firm plans to share regarding Archives Week, but since that is little more than a month away now, hold that thought. She reported that about 180 folks showed up for the screening of the five videos created from archives holdings, covering Saskatchewan and the First World War. I've attached a photo of one of the displays. Needless to say - but I'll say it anyway - FOSA volunteers helped out a lot at the event.