Mayor's Report - February 2009

One of the many challenges of organizations both large and small is that of Information Management -- the application of systematic planning, controls, and standards, in conjunction with information handling systems, to the creation, use, transmission, retrieval, retention, conversion, final disposition, and preservation of information resources in all formats.

I have been living with the “information management” challenge as part of my history book project “Belcarra - A Visual History”. What started out as research for the book has transformed itself into an archive consisting of 8,400+ electronic files occupying 9 GB on my computer hard drive. Over the past eight years I have made it a point to scan relevant documents, photographs and newspaper articles with the thought and motivation that “this needs to be preserved”. As I begin to contemplate completion of the book -- in the not distant future, I hope -- I now ask myself:

What is to happen to these archival materials?

There are a number of important questions relating to the adoption of an archival materials preservation policy that need to be considered:

Most municipalities across the country have asked these questions and established their own archival materials preservation policy, and now it is Belcarra’s turn. As we approach Belcarra’s 30^th anniversary on August 22^nd, I believe that it is important that Belcarra Council adopt an archival materials preservation policy, with the policy’s objectives being to:

Fortunately, with so many communities already having done so, there are numerous useful resources regarding the development of archival materials preservation policy and procedures, including:

Archives Association of British Columbia (AABC) -- “A Manual For Small Archives”
http://aabc.bc.ca/aabc/msa/

Archives Association of British Columbia (AABC) -- “The Archivist’s Toolkit”
http://aabc.bc.ca/aabc/toolkit.html

City of Vancouver Archives (CVA)
http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/ctyclerk/archives/about/abcon.htm

Canadian Council of Archives (CCA)
http://www.cdncouncilarchives.ca/cas.html

It is important to remember that the identity of a community is preserved in its history!

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