|
President's Report - Spring 2003
Jo-Ann Munn Gafuik, President, Archives Society of Alberta
Mark your calendars. The official opening of the splendid new Provincial Archives of Alberta building has been tentatively set for the week of October 5th to coincide with Archives Week. Plans for the celebration of this momentous occasion were discussed at the Provincial Archives Advisory Board meeting on March 3rd (in the construction zone) and will be finalized at the next meeting of the Board on June 9th. Several different events have been proposed. The ASA will definitely be hosting a reception early on during the week and someone has suggested a fundraiser, the Archives' Amble, which would involve archivists getting sponsors to walk a certain number of laps around the 'information highway', the hallway that provides access to the storage vaults in the new building. If you have any ideas about how to mark this long anticipated event, please contact Kirsten Olsen who, I am pleased to report, is again serving as chair of the Communications/Public Awareness Committee.
On another topic, I met with the Executive Director and the Director of Strategic Development of the Alberta Online Consortium to discuss opportunities for collaboration on the "Archival Resources in the Classroom" project outlined in the last newsletter. The mandate of the Alberta Online Consortium is to "shape the emerging option for network learning utilizing existing and new technologies to enhance and optimize student learning" and to "seek ways to ensure all Alberta students have access to high quality online education". Its membership includes officials from Alberta Learning and representatives from Alberta school boards. They have recent experience in the development of web based tools for the classroom and plan to undertake an evaluation of the effectiveness of the tools in the near future. Institutional members of the ASA bring content to the table as well as an understanding of the quality of recordness and the significance of context. Based on our initial meeting, the prospect of working together to build a product that will not only be used in Alberta classrooms to teach the content but will also serve to teach critical thinking skills, is very good. We will keep you posted.
You should all be aware that the provincial equivalent of the privacy part of the federal Personal Information Privacy and Electronic Documents Act has been drafted. It is expected to get first reading in the legislature in mid-March. We asked but were not permitted to see an advance copy of the legislation and there will be no opportunity for community consultation. My understanding is that research issues have been addressed but I have no other information at this time.
Finally, I'm interested in your input on the topic of admission fees. The Board has been asked if charging researchers an admission fee would negatively affect ranking in the grant adjudication process. The Board considered the question at its last meeting and concluded that since one of the principles of the ASA grant program is that funds should be directed to projects that promote greater access to records and since the implementation of an admission fee will make the records less accessible, it would likely become a factor in the adjudication process. Do you agree that it should? What do you think about admission fees more generally? I invite members to send comments to ASA-l or to any board member.
| 
