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People and Places
There is exciting news from the Sir Alexander Galt Museum and Archives. A long-awaited expansion was officially launched Friday, January 24, 2003, with the announcement of $1.9 million funding from the Canadian Heritage, Cultural Spaces program, and the hiring of an architect for the project.
Senator Joyce Fairbairn was pleased to announce $1.9 million from Canadian Heritage as the federal contribution towards the project. The City of Lethbridge committed $2.0 million as a leadership gift towards the project in January 2002. The Museum will need to raise an additional $5.1 million from the Government of Alberta, corporate partnerships and community donations to successfully complete the project. The fund development campaign will be officially kicked off in May, 2003.
The Chairman of the Galt Museum and Archives, Doug McLaughlin, also announced that Kasian Kennedy Architecture, Interior Design & Planning Inc. has been hired to design the Museum's expansion. Kasian Kennedy was established in 1968 and has offices in Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver.
The Sir Alexander Galt Museum and Archives is excited to celebrate the Province of Alberta's Centennial with this expansion and renovation project. The expansion project will create approximately 7,000 square feet of additional state-of-the-art gallery space, a new theatre for
public events, a Museum School, and new facilities for the on-site storage and conservation of artifacts. In addition, the project will ensure that Canadian class-A museum standards are implemented to allow the Museum to host major regional, national and international traveling
exhibits.
The Galt Museum and Archives moved into its current facility in 1966. An expansion of the museum opened in 1985 and provided additional gallery space and additional archive and collections storage area. The Museum has since outgrown its facility. The Museum attracts 50,000 visitors annually, and looks to attract an additional 50,000 visitors annually with the announced expansion.
For further information, please contact Ron Ulrich, Executive Director at (403) 329-7300
Sammie Morris, Editor of Museum Archivist: Newsletter of the Museum Archives Section, Society of American Archivists has named the Glenbow Museum website among the top ten Museum Archives websites during a recent survey. Criteria included general and contact information, description of holdings, research policies and procedures, finding aids (including databases) and attractive images. Congratulations Glenbow!
When the Lloydminster & District Centennial Commemorative Association was formed in 1994, the decision was made to set up an archives to "acquire, preserve and make available to the public, records of enduring value to Lloydminster and surrounding Districts" in acknowledgement of Lloydminster's centennial year in 2003. The Lloydminster Regional Archives began operating in 1999.
The Archives is directed by a subcommittee of the twelve-member volunteer Board of Directors and is run mainly with volunteer help. The Archives presently has an employee working eight hours a week to help prepare for the operation of the Archives during Centennial Week. The Lloydminster Regional Archives has numerous collections and are actively seeking more. One collection consists of approximately ninety taped interviews with various Lloydminster & district citizens.
Presently the Lloydminster & Regional Archives is open Mondays and Tuesdays from 12:30 PM to 4:30 PM. Inquiries may be made by telephoning (780) 875-9272.
2002 was an extraordinarily busy year for the University of Calgary Library, Special Collections with regards to the acquisition of new archival fonds and accruals to well established fonds.
A major book collection of Canadian poetry, The Marvin Orbach Collection of Canadian Poetry, brought a small but significant amount of manuscript and other archival material such as letters from Ralph Gustafson, Irving Layton and others. The archival materials in this collection of over 2400 books add an interesting dimension to the literary archives in Special Collections. The collection was presented by Mr. Marvin Orbach from Montreal, who started collecting at the age of 17 when he first began studying at university.
Important new accessions of literary and music archival materials were received from Canadian writers and composers, namely Murdoch Burnett, Hallvard Dahlie, Kenneth Dyba, Leona Gom, Katherine Govier, Monica Hughes, Robert Kroetsch, Norma Beecroft, Keith Bissell through his
daughter Karen Evans, Quenten Doolittle, George Fiala, Malcolm Forsyth, Srul Irving Glick through his wife Sara Wunch Glick, R. Murray Schafer, and Ben Steinberg. Information about these new accessions will be added as entries are revised in the ANA database and the fonds-level
descriptions on the Special Collections web site.
Several new archival fonds were acquired: correspondence, manuscripts and other materials from Alberta author and publisher Cecelia Frey, Susan Stratton Roberston Davies correspondence, and correspondence, photographs and other materials regarding Florence Thorpe who was involved in dramatic productions in Calgary. Several items relating to Sophie Carmen Eckardt Gramatté which had been from the Estate of Maryalice Stewart were received from her sister Ralphine Locke through the University of Calgary's Department of Music.
A substantial archive, the Richard Simmins fonds, consisting of correspondence, journals, manuscripts, photographs and works by others increased the holdings of literary archives. Richard Simmins during his lifetime was an owner of an antiquarian bookstore, an arts journalist
and a collector. The fonds was donated by his three children Marjorie Simmins, Zoë Landale and Geoffrey Simmins. The fonds contains a considerable amount of correspondence and other materials from them and from other members of the family.
The Wayson Choy fonds brings the creative work of the award winning author of The Jade Peony and Paper Shadows. Wayson Choy is also the author of short stories and plays and he has been a member of faculty at Humber College and the Humber School of Writers in Toronto. The
archive measures 12 linear metres consisting of correspondence, manuscripts, teaching materials, workshop and conference materials, photographs, work about Wayson Choy, and work by other authors.
Submitted by Apollonia Lang Steele, Special Collections Librarian, University of Calgary
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