Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC releases special report, "A Failure to Archive"

Elizabeth Denham, the Information and Privacy Commissioner for BC, released a special report on July 22, 2014 titled "A Failure to Archive: Recommendations to Modernize Government Records Management". The report deals with three issues:

1. the decade-old backlog of 30,000+ boxes of records awaiting transfer from government to the BC Archives, which is part of the Royal BC Museum, a Crown corporation. The RBCM established a fee of $454 for the transfer of a box, so government offices decided to warehouse the records which was less expensive. 
2. "the lack of a practical method for archiving government’s electronic records", especially on the part of the BC Archives, which "does not have the capability to accept or archive those records. This challenge has been addressed in other jurisdictions, but B.C. [the province] has yet to make any significant progress in managing the archiving of electronic records."
3. modernization of the legislative framework for records management.

You can download the PDF report at https://www.oipc.bc.ca/special-reports/ and a press release is available for downloading at https://www.oipc.bc.ca/news-releases/

Bravo to the RCMP for thwarting a terrorist threat in Victoria

Good for the RCMP and other public security agencies in managing to thwart a terrorist threat in Victoria that would have seen pressure-cooker bombs like those used in the Boston Marathon explode on the grounds of the Parliament Buildings in Victoria on Canada Day (July 1) 2013. According to the CBC.ca article "Court records indicate Amanda Marie Korody, 30, and John Stewart Nuttall, 39, have each been charged with conspiracy to commit an indictable offence, knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and possession of an explosive substance." Considering this was next door to where I used to work at the Royal BC Museum (BC Archives) and where friends and former colleagues still do, this was close to home. I do remember some colleagues being skeptical about the Buildings ever being a target following 9/11.

Happy 25th anniversary Expo 86

May 2, 2011 marks the 25th opening day anniversary of Expo 86, the little-big international exposition that changed the face of Vancouver. I have fond memories of wandering the grounds, not in a daze except for the time I came down with food poisoning, visiting every pavilion I could and filling my Expo 86 Passport with as many pavilion stamps as I could.

What memories do you have of Expo 86?

Will any public body be commemorating the 25th anniversary of Expo 86? People I used to work with may recall that I unsuccessfully tried promoting a virtual exhibit for the 20th anniversary. All the surviving archival records of the Expo 86 Corporation are preserved by the BC Archive at the Royal BC Museum. You can view the description of those records.

Friends of the BC Archives talk on early BC photographers from Great Britain

Yesterday (October 17, 2010) I gave a talk to the Friends of the BC Archives called "Wild and Picturesque: The British Contribution to Early British Columbia Photography." Much of my time over the past couple of months has been devoted to that project. Thanks in part to a wonderful editorial by Times-Colonist journalist and BC historical research booster Dave Obee on October 15, 2010, Old Photographs Help Us Explore B.C.'s Past, the Newcombe Conference Hall in the Royal BC Museum was filled to capacity. I knew many people in the audience from my years working on the reference desk at the BC Archives, so that made it easier and a more pleasant experience to share some of research into the lives of BC's 19th century photographers from the British isles. If you were there, thank you very much for turning out on a beautiful fall day!

Royal BC Museum gets bitten by the blogging bug at last

The Royal BC Museum Blog, hosted by Google's Blogger service, in case you had not yet heard, is out there on the blogosphere. The first post by Tim Willis was on March 10, 2010 and the most recent by archivist Ann ten Cate, all about a bathroom fetish, was on May 12, 2010. The RBCM is also on Facebook and YouTube.

Flaying the Freedom of Information sinners

On April 10, 2010 Stephen Hume published in the Vancouver Sun a powerful and provocative denunciation of the British Columbia governments' evisceration of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FOIPPA) that was introduced in 1992 as the new law governing information dissemination and personal protection privacy. Among his targets were my former employer the Royal British Columbia Museum and the division I worked for at the time, the BC Archives. The BC government in its wisdom placed the Archives under the Museum, which itself was turned into a Crown corporation through a new Museum Act on April 1, 2003. One of the facts Hume got wrong in his story, which was easy enough to check, was the number of hours the BC Archives reference room is fully staffed. He stated it was four hours Monday to Friday when in fact it is currently six hours (10 am to 4 pm). Hume draws this chilling analogy between the current state of the FOIPPA administration and the BC Archives:

The emaciated travesty that the archive has become under successive governments might be said to symbolize what has been going on for decades with freedom of information legislation.

AABC Newsletter article about my retirement

You can read a nice little summation of my career at the BC Archives written by my former colleague Ann ten Cate in the AABC Newsletter (Winter 2010; PDF file). The Newsletter also includes a post reprinted by permission from my Ten Thousand Year Blog, "Martin Knelman claims Canadian audio-visual heritage at risk, but is it true?"

Any information you might have on Victoria photographer Gus A. Maves (1882-1942)?

I am researching Victoria photographer Gus A. Maves (1882-1942). Maves was originally from Toronto, Ontario. He was most active in Victoria between the 1920s and 1930s. He specialized in scenic landscapes for postcards and industrial photography such as homes (exteriors and interiors), gardens and agricultural activities. His wife Margaret did the coloring of his photographs and also "transformations" to turn a photograph into a piece of art. His BC work is preserved by the BC Archives, Royal BC Museum.

If you know of any examples of his work outside the BC Archives or have any information about him you can share, please contact me via the e-mail address on my contact page.

Red rock tapes could stay here (more info)

Update for February 13, 2010:

Red Robinson provided his reasons in a lengthy letter to the Times-Colonist editor on February 13 to my question about whether he had contacted the BC Archives or the Library and Archives Canada about acquiring the interviews he gave to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He said that organization will put them online, yet in the original Times-Colonist article it was stated that "A couple of years ago, he had them digitized." Since the interviews are already in a digital format and he was willing to relinquish them for full public consumption, he could have had the digitized interviews uploaded to probably the world's largest online repository of free, historic audio material, the Internet Archive's Audio Archive.

Mr. Robinson mentioned the Jack Cullen and Dal Richards collections. If he had checked the BC Archives Web site he would have discovered that they have some of their work already, along with many other examples from BC radio broadcasters (producers and stations) and musicians.

Original post of February 11, 2010:

My letter to the editor of the Times-Colonist newspaper appeared in the February 10, 2010 issue and online. It's my reaction to its story from February 6 about Vancouver rock and roll DJ Red Robinson donating his interviews with music industry personalities to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.

DJ Red Robinson interviews heading south to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Ohio, USA

I was very surprised to read in the Victoria Times-Colonist newspaper on February 6, 2010 this remark by Vancouver rock and roll dj Red Robinson:

"There is no repository for my stuff, or Bruce Allen's, or Bryan Adams', or anybody," Robinson said. "It's a disgrace." So he decided to give [his stuff] to the Rock Hall.

First of all, though I obviously can't speak for those institutions, I would love to know if he had approached the Library and Archives Canada or even the Royal BC Museum which houses the BC Archives. Mr. Robinson might be surprised to know that legendary rocker Randy Bachman's archival records (described under the title "Randy Bachman fonds") are preserved by the Library and Archives Canada and constitute a relatively large body of multiple media material. That institution also preserves the Gino Empry fonds, an individual with performing arts credentials somewhat comparable to Bruce Allen's.

Secondly, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) has a Canadian Music Hall of Fame program, so if folks in the music industry are intent on keeping their archival records in Canada, perhaps they should start working with CARAS towards a physical solution rather than see Canadian recording industry cultural property head south or, worse, destroyed through neglect or willful intent.

Although Canadian cultural property generally excludes material less than 50 years old and created by living persons, there are always exceptions. And the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board even has grants available to help designated public institutions acquire material they might otherwise not be able to afford.

Travels in America through Live@Lunch program, Royal BC Museum, on February 3, 2010

I went to my first Live@Lunch talk as a retired RBCM employee, usually by a Royal BC Museum staff member, on February 3, 2010. The presentation was by Shelley Reid, the Museum's registrar (the Live@Lunch description mistakenly calls her a Collections Manager), who made a trip last year to Washington, D.C., and several other historic points of interest to her. She gave a great talk well illustrated with photographs she took or gathered off the Web in cases where she couldn't photograph or wished to add some historic context to her own photograph. I almost mentioned that I might have been the only person in the room who had climbed up and down the Washington Memorial when I was eight years old. I particularly remember the climb down and being so glad to get out into the fresh air. The only other places I remember visiting on that trip were the Lincoln Memorial and the Jefferson Memorial.

It was great seeing some of my colleagues again and they got to see more of me as I went next door to the Archives to do some research, only an item I'd requested by phone in the morning had gone walkabout, but they did thankfully find it later in the day, holding true to their motto, "It's Around Here Somewhere."

The day before my retirement from the British Columbia Archives, Royal BC Museum

Today, December 17, 2009, was the day before my last day of work at the British Columbia Archives, Royal BC Museum. Here's a photo taken by Dan Savard who looks after the audio-visual collections in the anthropology/ethnology section of Human History on the Museum side of our operation. This was taken at a pizza lunch. My former boss, Kathryn Bridge, curated the Emily Carr exhibit. Dan and I appreciated the sentiment of the exhibit's subtitle to which I'm pointing.