Bigger than a breadbox.This is a picture of the Alberta Records Centre, where the provincial government stores its inactive records. (Inactive records are the ones the government no longer accesses regularly. They will eventually be either destroyed or transferred to the provincial archives.) To give some idea of the size of the place, the guy in the picture is about 6'3, and he's standing at row 1 of 24. The records centre has a capacity of 710 000 boxes. The Provincial Archives of Alberta accepts only 3-5% of inactive records from the Alberta Records Centre. Even so, their collection is huge.
This fall I worked on a project for a government department that involved reviewing records that the provincial archives had accepted but no longer wanted. Even though most of the info was pretty boring, there were some nuggets among the dross. The thing about archival research is that you never really know when you're going to hit paydirt. A really interesting document on medical ethics in Alberta, for example, may be tucked into in a file on the day-to-day administration of the mental health program. Or a file on the provincial government's response to the 1987 tornado stuck in a box full of accounts payable info.
If you've ever been interested in stuff like why Edmonton felt the need become an architectural wasteland, those clippings files the archivist was talking about today are a good place to start. I learned from them that one of Edmonton's mayors in the 1960s said old buildings like the McLeod Building and the old post office "have no value" whatsoever. And the editorial this was quoted in agreed with that sentiment!
Nobody, least of all I, claimed archival research, or for that matter records management, is exciting. But it's pretty cool when you come across those gems.
Oh wow. This is amazing. I would have a field day sifting through all of those.
ReplyDeleteThat's a big room. Kind of scary actually. I don't think I could do it, be a researcher I mean. After going through 1 or 2 boxes I'd be done for the rest of my life.
ReplyDeleteI was just curious, at what point do records become "inactive"? What are the requirements for getting tossed?
ReplyDeleteBasically a record becomes inactive when it is no longer being accessed regularly. This could occur after the completion of a project, or when records are superseded by newer information, for example. How long inactive records are kept is determined by a number of factors, including whether they show evidence of the business done by the originating office, if they have historical value, or whether they are governed by legal requirements. For example, all financial information must be kept for 7 years, and tuberculosis records are kept for 75 years or until the death of the patient, whichever is longer. Stuff like regular administrative files could be kept for 3 or 5 years -- how long is determined by the likelihood that the originating office will need to refer to them again.
ReplyDeleteThese decision points - whether to keep or destroy -- are governed by legal documents called retention and disposition schedules. Each set of records has its own schedule, which are designed by people who analyze the records, how they are being used, and if they will be needed in the future.