We were dismayed to learn of the federal government’s April 30th decision to severely cut the budget of Library and Archives Canada and to eliminate the National Archival Development Program and the body that administers it, the Canadian Council of Archives.
The CCA supports a network of archival institutions and advisory services across the country and has played an integral part in the development of Canadian archival standards and in the support of the development of all the provincial and territorial online archival databases across the country (BC’s is MemoryBC). It brings the latter together under Archives Canada, the national database of archival descriptions. These databases were built on and are supported by NADP funding, as are numerous archival and preservation advisory services in the provinces and territories.
At the City of Vancouver Archives, we have benefited from NADP funding since the mid-1980s, and a lot of the content you see online is there, in one way or another, because of an NADP-funded project. For example, we’ve used NADP funds to:
- Create thousands of descriptions of records in all formats—textual records, photographs, maps, movies–in our database for the likes of the Townley, Matheson and Partners fonds, the Junior League of Greater Vancouver fonds, the Gordon Price fonds, the (Mayor) LD Taylor family fonds and the Yaletown Productions Ltd fonds
- Describing and digitizing major photographic collections and fonds such as the Major Matthews Collection, the Steffens-Colmer collection and Jack Lindsay Ltd Photographers fonds
- Clean and/or rehouse glass plate and acetate negatives
- Purchase supplies for housing acetate negatives in cold storage
- Purchase digitization equipment
- Develop the standards and procedures for our audio digitization program and digitize audio recordings
- Develop the standards and procedures for digitizing our moving image holdings and digitizing them.
We were counting on funds from the NADP this year to help process the BC Sugar fonds. With the elimination of the program, we will not be able to make these records available as soon as we would like to.
For more information about the impact of the cuts on the archival community and users of archives please visit the CCA’s Facebook page.
I have some wonderful photos of Gastown from the Vancouver Archives. I live there so it`s wonderful to see my home as it was (along the rails) many years ago. I understand the value and importance of archives for any Canadian and hope that you will be able to continue your good works.
Thanks for the supportive words, Pam. Please feel free to help spread the word about the cuts.