Preparing for the Future
by Jane Turner

The holiday season has been a busy one for the Executive preparing and submitting all program grant applications to the Canadian Council of Archives, and the BC Community Archives and Advisory Training program. We have also been busy preparing for CAIN, the upcoming Conference 2001, the Strategic Planning Workshop, and reviewing Archives Week 2000. And, a few of us have been busily counting the weeks to the AGM on April 28th!

Preparing for CAIN

The long anticipated CAIN fever is finally upon us, and we are already well into year one activities. Thanks to the experienced leadership of the Internet Committee (Erwin Wodarczak, Chair) and the CAIN Committee (Ann Carroll, Chair), the AABC is in good shape to manage effectively the challenging task of working towards a national electronic archival information network that will provide internet access to RAD-compliant descriptions and digitization projects.

The Executive is working hard to ensure that the entire archival community in British Columbia will benefit from this federally funded opportunity. Some money will be spent centrally by the AABC to ensure an adequate infrastructure is in place, and to provide CAIN-specific advisory services to assist all members. The majority of funds will be distributed to institutional members on a grant adjudicated basis, either directly or through the provision of an itinerant archivist to assist institutions in preparing RAD-compliant descriptions. More information is found elsewhere in this issue of the Newsletter.

The entire scope of the four-year project must be managed within the policy guidelines and tight time-frame established by the Canadian Council of Archives. Unfortunately, the timelines are beyond the control of the AABC. While this may cause many of us within the Association some moments of angst, the Executive will work hard to ensure that all members will be provided with as much support and direction as is possible.

If you have any concerns about this project please contact me so we can seek a resolution together.

Preparing for Conference 2001: "The Place of Archives in Heritage"

Under the capable leadership of Program Committee (Jennifer Mohan, Chair) and the Local Arrangements Committee (Mickey King, Chair), the conference planning is well underway. Jennifer's summary of the program is found elsewhere in this issue of the Newsletter, and gives you a flavour of the innovative program that will bring together many diverse members of the broader heritage community so that we can jointly explore our common interest in the place of archives in heritage.

We are pleased to accept the invitation of our Honorary Patron, the Honourable Garde B. Gardom, Q.C., Lieutenant-Governor of British Columbia to host the opening reception at Government House. We are also thankful to Gary Mitchell, Provincial Archivist, for agreeing to sponsor this event. I hope you will all be able to join us at Government House to start the conference off in style.

And, of course, none of you will want to miss the AGM -- the highlight of the conference, as Jennifer coins it!

Preparing for the Spring Strategic Planning Workshop

The Strategic Planning Workshop will be held on February 23rd and 24th at the Best Western Sands Hotel in downtown Vancouver. The Executive will be joined by Committee Chairs and Regional Representatives to review programs and discuss plans for the future. The agenda will include a review of four-year plans for the Education/Advisory, Network and Preservation programs; plans for and development of regional groups; implementation of institutional standards; and the implementation of CAIN grants. If last year is any indication, I know that the open dialogue and resulting synergy will have positive results for the entire Association, and will enable the Executive to continue to be responsive to the needs of our members.

Preparing for the British Columbia Archives Week 2001:

Archives Week 2000 is now history. It was a busy time for the Public Awareness, Advocacy and Legislation Committee, and I am pleased with the extensive website, the beautiful poster, and stories of several special events that were held to honour and promote the valuable work done by archivists in the province.

The poster and information package about Archives Week was distributed all across the province, from Fort St John to Waglisa to Hope to Zeballos to Ucluelet, and to every nook and metropolis in between. As I compiled the mailing list, I often had to scurry to my atlas to find the place on the map. In the process, I also learned a little of our postal service: the packages went by general delivery and bag delivery to street addresses, postal boxes, and even postal drawers. There were 680 schools on the mailing list, representing the rich diversity of our province - public schools, alternative schools, church schools, native schools, Catholic schools, Muslim schools, and school programs in hospitals. All in all we distributed 1,900 posters to archives, libraries, museums, historical societies, schools (with grade 8 and over), as well as to AABC members. As a result, a lot of people learned a little more about the value of archives.

I received numerous requests for the beautiful poster designed by Emyrs Miller. One woman saw the poster in the Esquimalt Library and phoned to order a copy for her brother in Quebec in the hopes of luring him to beautiful British Columbia. Her lovely thank-you letter eloquently captures the artistic power of the poster. She wrote:

I am fascinated by photographs -- especially old ones. The balance of the photo to the lower left of the poster takes me to the shadowed figure of a man on the logs, and then to the tension of the rope's line holding back the weight of the logs from the pull of the horses. This photograph is so beautifully caught and printed, I can almost hear the snow being compressed by the logs -- the sound of man's work in the silence, long ago.

That is the beauty of old photographs. They are glimpses of our collective lives over time, and I add my experience of walking through the snow in our west coast woods, sensing the silence and snow waiting heavily in the air.

I think, reflecting on this poster as I'm doing again now in leisure, that the border colours enhance the sepia shades of the photograph very well. I especially like the blue background photo positioned to the right of the poster, with archives in storage also bound by rope, so that the whole of the poster has a sense of storage and promise. It's as if these boxes wait for the light of day. I have promised myself to visit the BC Archives in the near future.

On November 20th, the Honourable Cathy McGregor, Minister Responsible for the BC Archives, officially proclaimed the inaugural Archives Week at the Secwepemc Cultural Education Society in Kamloops . All of us in attendance were graciously welcomed by Chief Ron Ignace, President of the Society, and Chief of the Skeetchestn Indian Band in Savona, BC; and Ken Favrholdt, archivist and curator at the Museum and Heritage Park.

The Society has redeemed the site of the old Kamloops Indian Residential School, and transformed it into a vital place dedicated to preserving the language, history and culture of the Secwepemc people (known to non-natives as Shuswap), a nation of 17 bands occupying the south-central part of British Columbia. The ancestors of the Secwepemc people have lived in the interior of BC for at least 10,000 years. Take time to browse through their amazing website and learn more about the work of the Society. You can find it at: www.secwepemc.org/main.html.

Chief Ignace extended to me an open invitation to the AABC to come to the Society's site in Kamloops for our annual conference. The Executive agrees that it would be an amazing opportunity for us to experience the warm hospitality of the Secwepemc people, and to explore the challenges and needs of managing First Nations archives.

In spite of the short planning time for Archives Week, I know of several places that were able to host a public event. The UNBC Archives hosted a panel of local authors discussing local history; the UVic Archives invited the Raging Grannies to perform, in honour of the recent acquisition of their archives; and the Whistler Museum unveiled a new exhibition to honour the occasion. Another amazing event happened in the Village of Belcarra, when the Mayor and Council of the village officially proclaimed Archives Week in their jurisdiction, announcing to everyone the importance of archives, and the accomplishments of our community archives network.

For those of you unable to plan an event because of the short time frame in this inaugural year, mark your calendars for November 18-24, 2001 for next year's Archives Week celebration. If the Association consistently offers this event, we can all rely on Archives Week as a mechanism to promote the value of archives to our local communities. To assist the Public Awareness, Advocacy and Legislation Committee with plans for next year, I would appreciate hearing from you on what we did right, and how we might improve.

Seasons Greetings

Much has been accomplished by our Association this year, and much remains to be done. As we face the remaining tasks together, may the peace and hope of the holiday season be yours this day, and remain with you throughout the coming year.

Archivally yours,
Jane

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© 2001 Archives Association of British Columbia