The fortune cookie at the Rainbow Chinese/Canadian Café in Hazelton read, "You will travel far and wide for business and pleasure." For one whose travels have been limited for many years to the dubious pleasure of commuting in the Lower Mainland, Hazelton is indeed far and wide and even exotic. And I was on my first outing "site visiting" in the North West region of B.C., a most pleasurable business as it developed. So as the cookie crumbled, the fortune inside was remarkably apt.

Those of you who keep a weather eye on the web-site will have noticed a new name attached to the AABC’s Education and Advisory Program, and I would like to take the opportunity, in this column, to introduce myself, and to indicate some of the directions the program will explore this year. I offer the following brief biography by way of letting readers know what kinds of education and experience I bring to the Education and Advisory Program.

In my life "before archives", I earned a Bachelor of Applied Arts in Radio and Television – yes, there really is such a thing – and worked in various unremunerative capacities in public radio, and cable television. Through a year with Frontier College, and summers touring puppet shows, I enjoyed exploring the back roads and small towns of the Prairie Provinces. I received the M.A.S. degree from UBC in 1994, but had accumulated some five year’s experience with a variety of arrangement and description contracts, mostly for the City of Vancouver, by that time. I had also compiled the B.C. Thesaurus indexing tool. From 1993 to March of this year, I worked as Assistant Archivist, and then Archivist for Community Records, with the City of Surrey. The Education and Advisory Archivist role will draw on both the before and after archives threads, giving exciting opportunities to write, meet people, and I hope, assist those engaged in the archival enterprise throughout the province.

No major changes in delivery of the Education and Advisory Program are contemplated this year; the archivist will be responsible for revision of curricula and presentation of scheduled and sponsored courses, and will undertake 25 site visits during the year. Additionally, I am available for inquiries and discussion at any time, via e-mail, fax, and telephone – oh, and of course, snail mail. Two initiatives this year are particularly worth noting. We will be developing, as a pilot program, materials for distance delivery of the foundation pre-requisite course, "Introduction to Archival Practice". Although online delivery may be an option at some time in the future, this year’s effort will focus on a more traditional correspondence-school style. Watch this column – we’ll be looking for willing "test pilots" for the course later in the year.

The second new development comes to us through the BC Library Association’s First Nations Interest Group. In conjunction with a more extensive "Information Workers " Institute, to be held from July 11-21 this summer at UBC, the Education and Advisory Program will offer the two-day Introductory course for twenty First Nations students. The rest of the Institute will be given over to study of cataloguing (AACR2), and care, handling, and special uses of maps. The Interest Group, together with SLAIS, the University College of the Fraser Valley, and Langara College, has long-term plans to develop a flexible curriculum to certify First Nations Information Keepers. On my recent trip to Kitimat, I was able to circulate material about the July Institute, to Nisga’a and Haisla registrants in a three-day Intro/Arrangement and Description. Both are doing exciting things with mapping, repatriation of museum and archival materials, and development of libraries. Their response to the program was very positive. There are some interesting challenges for delivery of our standard course in this context, because of the special character of repatriated archival materials, issues of access and ownership, and the significance of oral history and modes of recording it for First Nations. That may be worth a column of its own in the Fall.

So far as business-as-usual is concerned, the schedule of course offerings will be finalized shortly, and advertised on the Education and Advisory page of the AABC website. Course offerings this year will include the afore mentioned distance version of the Introduction, revised versions of Archival Handling of Photographs and Conservation of Photographs, and Disaster Planning. Other courses can be requested on a sponsored basis, depending on the availability of instructors. One of the objectives of the Education and Advisory Program is to spread the schedule of site visits evenly around the province, so that every interested repository has the opportunity to meet either the conservator or the archivist at regular intervals. For this year, the designated areas for the archivist are the Lower Mainland, North Vancouver Island, and the Northwest.

Planning for future initiatives is an ongoing process. Please share ideas with me for courses you’d like to see developed. It seems, for example, there might be considerable demand for courses on soft-ware selection, or data-base design. All suggestions are welcome. Contact me at any time through the link on the AABC website, jeturner@aabc.bc.ca, or at :

Janet Turner
1260 Victoria Drive,
Port Coquitlam B.C., V3B 2T9
Tel./Fax: (604) 942- 9790

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© 2001 Archives Association of British Columbia