The Archives Association of British Columbia invites you to participate in our annual Archives Awareness Week activities, November 17 - 23, 2024. While our work may be focused on preserving the past, we also look to the future and activities that support diversity in our organizations to foster a vibrant, responsive, and engaged archival community.

This year, we encourage you to join us to learn more about activities that promote diversity in our profession that include:

• Using MemoryBC as a tool to diversify your organizational outreach

• UNESCO Memory of the World commemorative designation that recognizes nationally and internationally significant archival or documentary heritage collections

• Diversifying your reference services and approaches

• An overview of the BCMA IBPOC Network, which includes community building, informal mentorship, and professional development training

• How a recently completed digitization project at the Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre uncovered and highlights the diverse history of their region 

Celebrating BC Archives Awareness Week Social Media Style!

How does your organization respond to the theme of diversity? Use the 2024 Archives Awareness Week social media hashtag #AAWdrivingdiversity throughout the week to share your stories.

Registration

All Archives Awareness Week events are free, except registration for the "Reference Redux" webinar (AABC members $20.00/person; Non-members $35.00/person).

Donations

While almost all of the events for Archives Awareness Week are free of charge, we encourage participants to consider donating to the AABC. Your donations will help provide awards to UBC School of Information students. Donations can be made via our website or through Canada Helps.

2024 Archives Awareness Week Presentation Recordings

Monday, November 18

"Driving Your Research Diversity: MemoryBC in the Passenger Seat”

Are you an AABC Institutional Member who uses an inhouse database (not MemoryBC) and has finding aids and other inventories already completed? Did you know that the use of MemoryBC is free with Institutional Membership? Join Lisa Snider, AABC BCANS Coordinator to learn how to effectively upload these access tools to MemoryBC to broaden your online research profile and diversify your organizational outreach.

If you are an Institutional Member that would like to view this presentation, please contact aabc.advisor@aabc.ca.

Tuesday, November 19

"Commemorating Archival Significance through UNESCO's Memory of the World Program"

Cody Groat, Chair of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO Memory of the World Advisory Committee, will introduce the UNESCO Memory of the World commemorative designation for nationally and internationally significant examples of archival or documentary heritage. Learn more about the Memory of the World process in Canada and ways to nominate items or collections for consideration. View this presentation

If you have further questions about this UNESCO program, please contact Cody at cgroat@uwo.ca

Wednesday, November 20

Webinar: “Reference Redux: Fostering Successful Reference Services”

Join us for this webinar on archival reference services! Participants will walk through best practices to apply a sound reference services program. Topics include assessing your audience, developing reference service policies, creating a welcoming but secure reference room, and how to support researchers when accessing sensitive materials. We will be joined by Georgia Twiss, Reference Historian with the Museum of North Vancouver Archives (MONOVA) who will share how they manage access to their holdings and work with the public. Access the webinar recording 

Thursday, November 21

“Building Community-Based Support with the BCMA's IBPOC Network"

Too often, racialized folks working in the arts and culture sector can feel isolated and unsupported, especially when facing challenges unique to representing historically marginalized communities in predominantly white spaces. Drawing on her own experiences of this challenge, Jazmin Hundal from the BC Museums Association will share how the IBPOC Network employs community building and peer support networks to help racialized professionals and volunteers co-navigate microaggressions, lateral violence, employment instability, and more. The IBPOC Network is comprised of members from museums, archives, galleries, libraries, cultural centres, science centres, non-profits, and Indigenous-run spaces. We believe in bringing folks together across all kinds of organizations to uplift and empower each other to change this sector, and make more space for us all. View this presentation

Friday, November 22

"Lights, Camera, Digitization! A Small Museum's Approach to Digitization"

Join Sara Wright, Collections Manager of the Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre for a discussion about their recent large-scale digitization project in the archives. From the development of a digitization strategy to three individual digitization projects, this presentation will go over the successes, failures, lessons learned, and how they have made some of the RMDC's most unknown collections items accessible to the public. View this presentation