Terry Eastwood welcomed new and returning members of the Advisory Committee. Current Committee membership is as follows:
TE then provided a brief overview of the activities of the committee since its inception in 1991.
Full information about the Committee’s terms of reference, chronology of key accomplishments, and meeting minutes is available at:
http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/uarmac.html#minutes
Chris Hives then provided an update on both the activities of the University Archives since the last meeting of the Advisory Committee as well as information about some of the initiatives currently in the planning stages.
To enhance access to archival materials the University Archives staff has invested significant time in the development of the Archives’ homepage. In March we completed a redesign of the site that is now available at: <http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/>. The Archives’ homepage consists of a number of elements including:
Currently, we are in the early stages of exploring the possibility of digitizing audio and video material. In addition, we have begun to identify some key textual materials that would be useful to have digitized and made available on the internet. This summer we will digitize the President’s annual report 1929 to 1960 through a Young Canada Works project. The UBC Archives has also assumed a leadership role in developing a grant application in conjunction with Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria to digitize copies of each of the institution’s student, administrative and alumni newspapers/publications. Tentatively titled the "British Columbia Tri-University Newspaper Digitization Project", the initiative when completed provide on-line access to approximately 100,000 pages of information.
This summer two Master of Archival Studies students will participate in a three-month practicum in the University Archives. In addition, there will also be contract archivists working on two Canadian Council of Archives grants.
Library-related news:
Following an administrative reorganization last summer, the University Archives now operates as a separate unit within the Library with the University Archivist reporting solely to the University Librarian. This reporting structure change represents the realization of the third of three original recommendations offered by the Advisory Committee. The other two included the development of an official mandate for the University Archives and an increase in the size of the staff of the Archives.
The Special Collections Division and University Archives have received significant new storage space on level 7 of the Main Library. While helping us to rationalize our storage, this new space will likely meet our growth requirements for approximately the next two years.
There is currently a proposal under consideration to build a University Learning Centre. The idea is to preserve the historic core of the Main Library, dismantle the wings around the core and built new facilities housing not only Library space but also providing a home for several other offices on campus. As one of the new tenants of the new building, the University Archives, along with the Special Collections Division, could enjoy specialized, climate-controlled, purpose-built space in the new facility.
On the topic of new facilities, CH pointed out that the University Archives would like to see some campus discussion on the possible development of an off-site records storage facility. Many university archives with records management responsibilities have access to off-site storage facilities where inactive, semi-active and even archival records are stored. Generally, these operations are part of larger library storage facilities such as BARD at the University of Alberta. It will be unlikely that even with the development of the new University Learning Centre that there will be sufficient space to store an ever-increasing amount of archival material. It would be useful to have alternative storage facilities for some of the more voluminous, lower-use materials. In addition to concerns about the storage of the University’s archival materials, there is also a significant demand from offices all over campus to provide a central storage facility for those records that are required by law to be kept for a specified period of time. CQ noted that the University’s recent acquisition of the Finnings Lands could provide space for this kind of storage facility.
Areas requiring attention:
While we have enjoyed significant success in expanding and enhancing access to archival materials we have perhaps not enjoyed the same success in the area of records management over the past decade. Despite the development of University policies for records management and records retention and disposition, we have not been very pro-active in this area. The main reason for this has been the lack of staff resources. Following a records survey in 1992/93, we hired Erwin Wodarczak as the Records Analyst/Archivist. Originally we envisaged that he would spend about half of his time doing records management the other half would be spend helping to process and make accessible records in the University Archives. In the early 90s we did not anticipate the advent of the internet and the fact that much of Erwin's time would be taken up with the development of web-based resources. He has had little time for any concerted records management activity. For the Archives to play any meaningful role in the management of contemporary records and information for an institution of this size, we probably have to consider the development of a new staff position dedicated to records management.
The Advisory Committee has often flagged electronic records as an important issue but in light of the complex issues surrounding this subject have not been able to offer firm recommendations about what should be done. We have received some computer disks as part of incoming archival collections but we have not yet begun to participate in larger institutional initiatives to identify and preserve electronic records as a genre. This is another area that will require the addition of staff with technological as well as archival expertise.
One last concern for the University Archives is the long-term preservation of some of our non-textual material. For instance, photographic negatives require specialized environments to ensure their preservation. Ideally they should be properly enclosed and stored in freezers. We also have preservation concerns about audio and video tapes which should be migrated on a regular basis. At present we do not have systematic preservation program for archival materials beyond some basic environmental, climate control in the vault area in the Main Library. In the upcoming year we hope to develop a comprehensive preservation plan for our non-textual archival materials.
During the ensuing discussion, committee members reiterated the importance that they placed on records and information management as a means of identifying and preserving the University’s permanent valuable records. They also expressed concerns about the responsibility for the disposition of electronic records. In particular, discussion focussed on issues relating to the on-going accessibility and preservation of electronic records. Two particular items in this regard were identified – the new electronic version of the UBC calendar and the data stored on the Student Information System. Although committee members assumed that the issues had been properly addressed in the design of the two systems they felt it would be useful to check with Student Services to ensure that these considerations had been taken into account.
Action: CH to check with Student Services on the issue of accessing historical versions of the electronic calendars and the on-going maintenance and preservation of data on the student information system
[This was done – for response see e-mail from Audrey Lindsay (Appendix 1)]
The Advisory Committee also discussed the idea of establishing a records centre that would provide central storage for the University’s inactive, semi-active and perhaps even archival records. Committee members supported this proposal and pointed out that as part of the process it would be necessary to develop an estimate of the cost of such a facility based on the projected volume of records that would be housed there. There was also some discussion about the management of such a facility and the importance of being able to provide turn-around time when material is requested.
One committee member suggested that it might be useful to consider establishing a "Friends of the University Archives" group. CH pointed out that while this might have some merits, the establishment of such a body is perhaps more appropriate for a community-based archival program rather than an institutional archives with responsibilities for records management. Perhaps it might be more useful to seek support for specific projects from various stakeholders around the University such as the University Administration, Alumni Association or the Alma Mater Society just to mention a few, based on the nature of the project.
One committee member suggested that in order to provide some concrete recommendations that the Advisory Committee lend its support to two areas – a renewed records management initiative and the pursuit of the university newspaper digitization project. The Advisory Committee supported the exploration of these initiatives while recognizing the constraints presented by current staffing limitations.
As a first step in the records management area CH suggested that he should meet with Dennis Pavlich to review issues relating to the records management, records retention and archives policies. Topics to be addressed include but are not limited to streamlining the process for moving the ‘draft’ records schedules to a final version and the issue of Vice Presidential responsibility for the policies in light of changes to the reporting structure of the Library in the President’s Office. In addition to the mechanism for giving formal approval to the draft schedules it will also likely be necessary to go back and revisit the draft schedules to ensure that the assumptions on which they were originally based are still valid.
Action: CH will contact DP to set up a meeting to discuss this issue.
[This has been done and we are scheduling a time for the meeting]
CH will compile minutes of the meeting and prepare a short document pertaining to potential developments in the University Archives based on the Committee discussions.
Meeting adjourned.
Subject: Electronic records Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2002 12:55:47 -0800 From: "Lindsay, Audrey" <audrey.lindsay@ubc.ca> To: 'Chris Hives' <chives@interchange.ubc.ca> Hi Chris, I'll attempt to answer your questions. Electronic Calendar For the course information, all course changes are date and time stamped and historical versions of the course are saved (unless it is just a minor correction (e.g. spelling mistake). This is all available through the FSC Curriculum database, but not in this format for all public usage. For the public access and all the course and other calendar information, yes, we are keeping archived versions of the Calendar - James Kim does 4 snapshots a year and archives these. See <http://students.ubc.ca/calendar/> for the current year. As to how you would reference an archived version of a Calendar from a prior year via the Web, I am not sure. I have copied James Kim on this and he will be able to address this question. Student records It is the responsibility of this office to maintain the academic records for all students forever. We have the old paper transcripts for all the old students prior to 1967 in the vault. We have microfilmed all these old transcripts and more recently converted this pseudo-electronic form to CD's. For every student that has attended UBC since 1967 we have an on-line real-time electronic record. (For students who started at UBC before 1969, we may only have a partial electronic record and a partial paper/CD record as described above.) Disk storage is relatively cheap, so at this point we have no intention of archiving historical records. If we do decide to archive inactive records at some point, we would need to create some method of archiving and retrieving historical records. As I mentioned earlier, the Registrar (and hence his system delegate) is responsible for ensuring the safety and completeness of all student records. I hope this helps. Audrey -----Original Message----- From: Chris Hives [mailto:chives@interchange.ubc.ca] Sent: Thursday, March 21, 2002 8:50 AM To: Audrey Lindsay Subject: Electronic records Hi Audrey, At a meeting of the University Archives and Records Management Advisory Committee meeting we started discussing matters relating to the role of the Archives in managing electronic records created at the University. Obviously this is a huge and very complex undertaking and one that is fraught with political and technological difficulties. Anyway, as an aside in this discussion the issues of the adoption of the electronic calendar as the official version of the document and the permanent maintenance of electronic student information came up. I said that I would follow up these issues - hence the email. Electronic Calendar While most people assumed that this issue had been addressed, there was some concern that someone in the future might have a difficult time going back ten or fifteen years to determine exactly what the calendar said at the time they took classes at the University. Dennis Pavlich rightly pointed out that the calendar really acts as an implicit contract between the student and the University. Currently with the old print copies of the calendar it is relatively simply for a former student requiring information for course equivalency or some other purpose to look up the information they need. So how are changes, amendments, modifications to the calendar recorded in the electronic version of the calendar and how easy is it for someone to go back to determine what the calendar looked like many generations before? Are snapshot taken at specified periods or is there some running method of tracing back changes made to the document? Student records This issue came up in a general discussion about the pros and cons of transferring electronic records to the Archives vs leaving them as the responsibility of the offices that created them. I, of course, am all in favour of the latter. But someone asked if a place like Student Services would take responsibility for maintaining the electronic records of all students for all time. That no one could answer with any degree of certainty. Is there anything you can say about the expectations about the length of time that student information would be maintained in the 'live' system and what, if any provisions have been made for the 'archiving' of student information as it becomes increasingly ancient?? Following on the discussion it was suggested that we probably should add the Registrar or someone from Student Services to the advisory committee which I think is definitely a good idea. If you could get back to me on these issues when you get a chance I would appreciate it.
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