Present: Terry Eastwood, Chris Hives, William Bruneau, Ted Dodds, Dennis Pavlich, Chris Petty, Anoush Poursartip, Nina Robinson, William Webber
Regrets: Susan Samuels, Peter Nemetz, Catherine Quinlan, Diane Kent
TE asked if there were any additions or revisions to the minutes of the last meeting (March 20, 2002)
There being none the minutes were approved.
Based on the discussion at the last meeting, CH agreed to contact Enrolment Services to determine what provisions have been made for access to superseded editions of the University calendar and also what is being done about the maintenance and preservation of information in the student information system. CH checked with Audrey Lindsay and her response was included in the last set of meeting minutes. Her response indicated that student records seemed well in hand but the situation vis-à-vis the calendar was a little less clear.
Action: CH to follow up with James Kim as to the status of superseded copies of the University calendar.
[This was done – for response see e-mail from James Kim, Appendix I]
At the last meeting CH agreed to meet with Dennis Pavlich to review the existing archives/records management policies in order to determine how best to get institutional approval for records schedules as they are developed. In that meeting CH and DP agreed that as a first step it would be useful to consider rolling the three existing policies into one easily understandable document. CH agreed to take this away and prepare a draft document. Unfortunately, there were a great number of projects and activities in the University Archives over the summer and CH did not get an opportunity to develop the document. CH asked if committee members had any concerns about integrating the existing policies into a single document. There being no concern expressed CH will continue with the preparation of the document.
Action: CH will draft a new policy document that incorporates the three existing archives/records management policies. This draft document will be circulated to committee members with the minutes of this meeting.
[See attached document]
CH pointed out that with Byron Hender’s official retirement from the University, Diane Kent, Enrolment Services has been asked to take his place on the Advisory Committee.
At the last Advisory Committee meeting there had been significant discussion relating to the records and information management role that the University Archives should be playing within the institution as a means of identifying and preserving the University’s corporate records. Moreover there was also discussion focussing on the importance of having the Archives participate in the management of the growing number of documents created and maintained electronically. The committee agreed that it would be very useful to renew efforts in the area of records and information management. It was agreed that CH would prepare a short document on this issue and circulate it to committee members for their consideration.
CH produced a draft document entitled “Managing and Preserving UBC’s Permanently Valuable Information Resources: Investing in a Legacy for Tomorrow”. While articulating the importance of the University Archives becoming more active in the area of records management the document also pointed out that the existing resources available were simply inadequate to assume the leadership necessary in this area. The report proposed a two step approach to the problem: (1) that the University provide funds for a contractor to conduct records survey in 2002/03 and, (2) that in 2003/04 a full-time University Records Manager be hired.
All committee members responding to the report supported its recommendations. One member suggested that it might be useful to simply combine the two positions and immediately hire a University Records Manager and have them carry out the records survey as their initial activity. This suggestion was passed on to CQ. Two other committee members expressed concern that in calculating the costs of these positions that there be a little more investigation of the more ‘hidden’ costs – clerical support, supplies and equipment. CH revised the section on the Records Manager by indicating that the supplies costs would be born by the Library and he indicated that he did not believe that the creation of such a position would in and of itself require clerical support. As for the computer equipment which was to be initially purchased for the records survey, there would be a three-year replacement cycle for a total cost of approximately $1,500 per year.
Following some minor revisions the report with the Advisory Committee’s support for its recommendations was passed on to CQ. She, in turn, has sent the report to Vice President, Academic Barry McBride for his consideration. CQ will inform the committee when she gets a formal response to the document.
CH reported on a number of projects with which the University Archives has been recently involved since the last Advisory Committee meeting.
Young Canada Works Project
The University Archives received financial support from the President’s Office to get a Young Canada Works project to digitize UBC president’s annual reports for the period 1929 to 1960. The digitization process proceeded better than expected, however, and the project archivist was able to include all the president’s reports to 2001 as part of the project. We have already received a great deal of positive feedback about providing access to this important source of institutional information. Access to the reports is provided through a pictorial display of past presidents of the university <www.library.ubc.ca/archives/presidents/Welcome.htm>
The University Archives also created and provided access to digital copies of a number of other textual documents including:
As with the President’s annual reports the Archives has also begun a project to digitize the annual reports of the University Librarian to Senate. This project is part of a larger undertaking to expand the available digital resources relating to the history of the UBC Library. Like the President’s annual reports, those of the University Librarian will be available off from a display of University Librarians and their dates of tenure <www.library.ubc.ca/archives/librarians/index.html>.
British Columbia Tri-University Newspaper Digitization Project
Another potentially large-scale digitization project with which the University Archives has become involved is the “British Columbia Tri-University Newspaper Digitization Project”. CH had briefly mentioned this project at the last meeting of the Advisory Committee. Amongst the most heavily used resources in the Archives are the three major University newspapers – “The Ubyssey”, “UBC Reports” and the “Alumni Chronicle”. Collectively, their approximately 50,000 pages constitute an unparalleled source of institutional historical information. Unfortunately, the passage of time is taking its toll on the unstable newsprint on which these publications have been produced and also the fact that the Archives holds the only complete runs of these publications hinders accessibility. As a consequence, the UBC Archives has provided leadership in the preparation of a collaborative grant to the Department of Canadian Heritage – Canadian Cultural On-Line Program together with Simon Fraser University and the University of Victoria. This application, if successful, would provide funding to digitize the three above-mentioned UBC publications and their counterparts at the other two institutions from microfilm holdings. The total cash requirement for this project has been estimated at just over $57,000 of which $42,00 has been requested from CCOP with the remainder to be made up by the participating institutions. UBC’s share which will be approximately $6,400 has been committed by the President’s Office and the Library. If this application is not successful the University Archives will go back to creators of these publications to solicit funds (as well as exploring other possibilities on campus) to help realize this important objective.
For a small sample of digitized copies produced from microfilm see: <www.library.ubc.ca/archives/ubcpubs/>
UBC Building Index
During the summer as part of the SLAIS professional experience program a student completed the research to update the University Buildings Index <www.library.ubc.ca/archives/chrono.html>. Providing basic information about dates of construction, architects, sources of funding and notable architectural features, the index previously only went to the mid-1950s. The index now provides a comprehensive chronological and alphabetical listing of existing and demolished campus buildings from 1925-2001 and as such constitutes an important source of historical information.
New Media Asset Management Software
During the summer the Archives’ staff spent several weeks investigating and evaluating two media asset management software systems. Currently the Archives has digitized approximately 29,000 photographic images. Access to these images has been provided through the Library’s DRA catalogue software. Unfortunately this software is designed for cataloguing books and is intended to get the user to a descriptive record rather than directly to a digitized image. In July the Library purchased a new software package called ContentDM and this will be used to manage access to a wide variety of digital resources within (and perhaps even beyond) the Library. As well as providing a means of accessing our existing and growing digitized photograph collection the Archives also hopes to add digital copies of audio and video recordings and other material as well. The Archives hopes to have all its materials available on the new system by the end of December ’02.
Action: CH will notify Advisory Committee members when this migration has been completed.
Other Notes
Since July the Archives’ staff have processed a number of new accessions. Significant among these have been the papers of Michael Ames, Sydney Friedman, Senator Pat Carney and Bill New just to name a few.
During the summer the Archives had an intern student from the MAS program. Starting in September there will be two professional experience students from the MAS program working on projects, a work studies student who will be involved primarily with scanning activities, and three student volunteers from the first year of the MAS program. In addition, the Archives will also hire a contract archivist to work on a backlog reduction project funded by the Canadian Council of Archives.
CH reported that the Archives has nearly completed a display for UBC’s official University ‘fight’ song – “Hail UBC”. Currently there is information about the song’s composer - a student named Harold King and also sheet music <www.library.ubc.ca/archives/haroldking/index.html>. The Archives also hopes to soon add a digital recording of the song.
[This has now been done and the song may be downloaded from the website]
The Archives will also prepare a display for the Royal visit based on images of previous trips made to campus by Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip.
[This virtual display was completed and is available at: <www.library.ubc.ca/archives/royalvisit/index.html>].
CH indicated that other institutions have embarked on oral history programs and wanted some input from the Advisory Committee as to this would be of benefit at UBC. By conducting oral interviews with long-serving faculty, staff and administrators, former students and perhaps donors, it is possible to capture information for which there are gaps in our existing documentation. Also such a resource could be of benefit and perhaps even tied in with the institutional history which is about to get underway.
A general discussion of the issue ensued and the committee members felt that it would be a useful initiative to pursue. There were a number of issues identified during the course of the discussions and some of these included:
In the end it was suggested that perhaps a pilot project of approximately ten interviews be undertaken to help identify any issues that might arise and also provide an opportunity to evaluate the product of these interviews.
Action: CH will take away the ideas arising from the discussion and prepare some proposals for the consideration of the committee.
[A copy of a draft report on oral history prepared by Archives’ staff prior to the Advisory Committee meeting has been included as an attachment to the minutes for the information of committee members]
At the conclusion of the Advisory Committee meeting there was a brief discussion on the ongoing issue of the management of electronic records. While the committee continued to consider this an important issue to deal with, as the report on Archives staffing pointed out it will be difficult to do a lot in this area before learning about the outcome of the request for additional staff in the Archives.
Communication from James Kim re: Electronic Calendars
Subject: RE: Electronic records Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2002 18:38:11 -0700 From: "Kim, James" <james.kim@ubc.ca> To: 'Chris Hives' <chives@interchange.ubc.ca> CC: "Lindsay, Audrey" <audrey.lindsay@ubc.ca>, "Runnals, Angela" <angela.runnals@ubc.ca> Hi Chris, There are a few different routes that a student might use to get information. Older versions of the Calendar are available at http://students.ubc.ca/calendar/archive. This archive currently goes back four years (which is all we have in terms of web versions), but we may extend this indefinitely as long as we have disk space and server resources. However, disk and server issues aside, the nature of the web will no doubt change in ten years. As a result, we are also investigating web archival software. This would allow us to maintain a complete backup of the Calendar in relatively low-tech format, i.e., no web server or database software required. This could then be copied to CD, DVD (or whatever medium is popular in 2012). Finally, we are still printing a paper copy, with hardbound editions produced for the UBC Library and National Library of Canada. Although demand for the printed copies is dropping, I don't foresee us stopping the print version in the near future. I hope this answers your e-mail -- please let me know if you have any further questions. Thanks, James ____________________ James Kim Web Analyst Communications, Enrolment Services The University of British Columbia james.kim@ubc.ca
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