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Fall Institutional Forum
Michael Gourlie
The ASA held the fall Institutional Forum at the Provincial Archives of Alberta in Edmonton on November 26. Approximately a dozen institutional representatives attended to discuss a variety of issues affecting the archival community.
One of the major issues was grants and the Canadian Council of Archives. Unfortunately, there was no new information about the status of the CCA's funding for its grants programs, other than the process of renewing the authorization for the funding was underway. The ASA's own grant programs will continue for 2005-2006, but the budgets are likely to be reduced as the ASA assumes the ongoing costs of maintaining the ANA databases previously borne by the Centennial Legacies grant.
Institutional representatives were also updated other ASA initiatives. The Archives in the Classroom (ARC) project and its archives tutorial component are now complete. Scanning and technical components of the prairie populist project is now underway. Presentations have been made at two teacher's conferences focussing on social studies and online learning, and the response from delegates to these conferences has been encouraging. Institutional representatives inquired as to whether the ARC project would be expanded to include additional trunks for which their own institutions may be able to raise funds, and a cost per trunk figure is being researched.
Other issues included a discussion of changes to the ASA Travel and Education Grants Program, which included an increase in the amounts allowed for accommodation and the elimination of the institutional portion of PDTA. The Association of Canadian Archivists will hold its annual conference in Calgary in 2009. Finally, Leslie Latta-Guthrie was congratulated with the announcement of her appointment as the new Provincial Archivist of Alberta.
The Forum concluded with a viewing of From Pedlars to Patriarchs: A Legacy Remembered, a documentary produced by the Jewish Archives and Historical Society of Edmonton and Northern Alberta that drew heavily upon archival sources.
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