NCPH recap: Day Four, March 19

I’m recapping my NCPH 2016 experience.  I’ve already written about the first three days of the conference and some of the great workshops and sessions from those days.  The final day of NCPH included a great keynote address and the bittersweet nature of a conference winding down. Awards Breakfast and Presidential Address The awards ceremony … Continue reading NCPH recap: Day Four, March 19

The Hurdles of Moving a Heritage Institution

Anyone can who working in a heritage organization or archive can tell you that storage space is often at a premium.  No matter how much space you have you often need more. Sometimes this space crunch, space renovations, or other factors can cause a heritage organization to decide to relocate.  Moving a heritage institution isn't … Continue reading The Hurdles of Moving a Heritage Institution

Digitization and Holistic Approaches to Data Sets

Over the past two years I have spent a lot of time working with Residential School quarterly return reports.  These reports were completed four times a year by School principals and contain the names, admission date, ages and discharge information of the students who were in attendance at the school.  The set of returns we … Continue reading Digitization and Holistic Approaches to Data Sets

Paperless Record Keeping in the Archive

Discussing the idea of going paperless in an archival setting seems a bit odd to most archival professionals.  After all, the bulk of archival records tend to be paper based in nature, the exception being born digital material and audio-visual collections. I used to work with a colleague who insisted on printing everything out.  This … Continue reading Paperless Record Keeping in the Archive

Battle of Documentation

Documentation provides a written account of procedures, practices, successes, failures, and countless other big and small details.  The benefits of documentation include preserving institutional memory, providing new employees with detailed explanations of work tasks, and avoiding personnel from reinventing the wheel. Even with all these wonderful benefits, documentation is often neglected in favour of more 'important' … Continue reading Battle of Documentation