Present: Terry Eastwood, Chris Hives, William Bruneau, Peter Nemetz, Catherine Quinlan, Herbert Rosengarten, Susan Samuels, William Webber, Diane Kent
Regrets: Ted Dodds, Dennis Pavlich, Chris Petty, Anoush Poursartip, Nina Robinson, Chuck Slonecker
Guest - Alan Doyle
Ike Barber Learning Centre
Chris pointed out that work was proceeding on the demolition of the north wing of the Main Library in preparation for the construction of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. Since last fall Library staff have been involved in discussions concerning the design of the building. The University Archives has worked very closely with the staff in Rare Books and Special Collections in helping to design the space that the units will share in the new building. Both units are very much looking forward to moving into purpose built space which will house the Library’s rare and unique materials. Located on the first level of the new Learning Centre, the units will become much more visible to users of the facility. A floor plan for the new space is available at:
http://www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca/images/concourse.jpg
As with the existing physical arrangement Archives will continue to share a reading room, retrieval desk, seminar room, special media playback rooms, and storage area with Rare Books and Special Collections. While special media including photographs, audio and video tapes, architectural and cartographic material will be stored in the vault, the bulk of the Archives boxed textual material will be stored in the Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS). Boxes will be barcoded and placed into bins. When a patron requests a box a robotic arm will retrieve the bin from which a staff member will pull the required box. Archives/Rare Books and Special Collections will have their own area storage area in the ASRS with its own delivery/retrieval station. Its estimated that the use of the ASRS technology will provide the Library with storage space for the next fifteen years.
In support of the development of Barber Learning Centre, the Archives co-ordinated the digitization of approximately 550 plans of the existing Main Library. Recognizing that this information would be in constant demand throughout the construction project it was decided that the best way to promote access to this material would be to scan and make the drawings available on the web. This was done during the summer and the plans are available at:
http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/libplans.html
This project proved to be very useful and we would like to digitize more of our architectural drawings in the future.
Migration of Photo Database to ContentDM
Work has continued on the migration of the Archives’ photographic database from DRA to ContentDM. Unfortunately the process has been a little slower than we had originally anticipated as a result of some technical difficulties and the amount of descriptive data revision necessary. Archives’ staff is very excited about the new database as it will operate quite differently from the old system. Now users will get back sets of images much more quickly. It is anticipated that we will cut over to the new system beginning the week of October 6th. The new database can be found at:
University Publication Digitization Project
The University Archives has for some time been working on a project that will result in the digitization of approximately 50,000 from the University’s three major publications -UBC Reports, Alumni Chronicle and The Ubyssey. Originally we had hoped to get federal grant and prepared a joint application with Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria. When this was unsuccessful we looked to the development of a partnership on the UBC campus to undertake the project. With support from the Graduating Class 2002/03, Presidents Office, UBC Library, Alumni Association and Public Affairs we were able to secure the necessary funds. To date the digitization of UBC Reports has been completed and the publication is available at:
http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/ubcreports/
The Alumni Chronicle has been digitized and will very soon be available at:
http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/chronicle/
Work will begin very shortly on the largest of the publications, The Ubyssey. A general page for the project can be founds at:
http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/ubcpubs/
As part of the digitization process the PDFs files have been OCR’d. It is our hope to be able to provide an overarching search engine that will be able to look across all of the files in all the publications in looking for designated search strings. The digitization of this material represents a significant development in enhancing access to critical historical resources for understanding the evolution of the institution.
Staff Changes
Beginning October 6th Archivist Erwin Wodarczak will be taking a six month paternal leave. To help out in his absence Melanie Hardbattle will be working on a part-time basis in the Archives and we also have been provided with 20 hours per week of Graduate Academic Assistant time.
University Records Survey Project
In May the Library hired Alan Doyle to work on the project that was one of the major recommendations coming from the University Archives and Records Management Advisory Committee.
Following Alan’s presentation there was considerable interest and discussion about the problems with institutional records keeping and importance of the University establishing an enterprise-wide records management program. Alan’s report and some additional information provided by Chris suggested that to institute a proper records management program at the University at least a full-time Records Manager would have to be hired to co-ordinate the program. In addition to the ongoing management of corporate information there is also the pressing matter of older corporate records which in the absence of University guidelines have been accumulating over many years. The institution of a records management program should also take into consideration the need to help deal with this historical accumulation of records.
Chris pointed out that the information being gathered by the survey was being entered into a database that would allow not only for the management of aggregated data but would also allow for more granular analyses of record keeping on campus. For instance one will be able to look at the situation in a specific faculty vis-à-vis records keeping.
The Records Survey has also been able to assist the University’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy office. As part of the survey Alan is collection information on how personal information is being maintained on campus.
In the discussion on Alan’s report that ensued it was suggested that consideration be given to gathering data about the costs of not having a records management (i.e. status quo) and the potential savings that could be realized through the institution of such a program. In this way when a proposal went forward the program would perhaps be viewed more favourably for funding.
Another suggestion involved the compilation of comparative information about the staffing levels of other university archives/records management programs. This would provide some context within which to better assess appropriate support for a similar program at UBC.
The chair recommended that some consideration might be given to the utilization of MAS students as a complement to other staffing options in helping address the large backlog of administrative records at the University that will have to be appraised.
Chris offered to keep committee members apprized of developments and progress in the University Records Survey and in any new developments in the Archives.
Next meeting of the Committee: Spring 2004
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