After consulting with Terry Eastwood and Catherine Quinlan it was decided to forego
the spring meeting of the
University Archives and Records Management Advisory Committee. This is not to suggest
that there are not important
and interesting things happening – indeed there are – but rather these
are largely issues of informational nature at this
point.
So rather than meeting I have provided the following brief report on developments
involving the University Archives
since the last meeting of the Advisory Committee on September 24, 2002.
As you have undoubtedly heard the University is now actively involved in the construction
of the Ike Barber Learning
Centre. This new facility will soon begin to take form around the historic core of
the Main Library building. This will
involve the demolition of the north, south and east additions to the original building
and reconstruction of a new facility
that will include a number of programs and units including those previously housed
in the Main Library.
This is certainly an exciting opportunity for the University Archives because it
allows for the development of
purpose-built space for the archival program. The Archives will continue to enjoy
a close physical and operational
relationship with Rare Books and Special Collections although efforts will be made
to ensure the preservation of the
unique identity and functions of the two units. We are now working with the project
architects in the design of the
storage, staff and public space that will be occupied by the units.
In addition to the storage of material in an environmentally-controlled vault area,
the University Archives will also be
able to make use of the building’s Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS).
This high-density, robotic retrieval
system will allow for the storage of much of the existing boxed archival records and
will also provide for the growth of
that collection over the next 15 years. I will circulate further information to the
committee as it comes available.
For additional general information about the Barber Learning Centre see website
at:
<www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca>
I am pleased to report that funding has been secured from the Library to support
the University records survey project
based on the Advisory Committee’s support for a recommendation from last year.
An advertisement for a nine month
contract has been circulated (see attachment) and
we hope to have the project begin in early May. On behalf of the
Advisory Committee I will be preparing draft of a letter that will be circulated to
the MADHU mailing list explaining the
scope and nature of the project. I hope to circulate it to committee members for input
in the next couple of weeks. This
records survey when completed will provide a much better understanding of the extent
and nature of records currently
being generated and maintain in all University offices. An interim report on progress
in the Records Survey Project will
be made at the fall meeting of the Advisory committee.
In the late fall we learned that our application to the Canadian Culture On-Line
Program (Canadian Heritage) for the
“B.C. Tri-University Newspaper Digitization Project” was not successful.
This was a collaborative project with Simon
Fraser and the University of Victoria. The UBC portion of this project was to involve
almost 50,000 pages from the three
major publications – The Ubyssey, Alumni Chronicle
and UBC Reports.
Over the last couple of months I have cobbled together funding from a variety of
sources that will allow the project to
proceed. The bulk of the funding has been secured from a generous gift from the Graduating
Class ($11,500) and from
the President’s Office and Library ($9,500). In addition it is anticipate that
there will be also be other partners providing
smaller amounts to the project. This project will proceed in perhaps three or four
phases beginning in the late spring.
We have now completed the initial migration of all of the University Archives digitized
photographs and descriptive
records to the new ContentDM database. Unfortunately, there has been a great deal
of data revision made necessary by
this migration and, as a result, public access to the new system is likely still several
weeks away.
A listing of newly-processed archival materials is available at:
<http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/new.html>
A new “Building a Provincial University” article/virtual display is
available at:
<www.library.ubc.ca/archives/buildingubc>
This is just a quick overview of the activities of the University Archives over
the past few months. Please let me know if
you would like addition information or have any questions or comments about any of
the items mentioned in this report.
Chris Hives, University Archivist
April 2, 2003
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