AFROG takes a giant leap forward!!
Diane Lamoureux, Archivist, Missionary Oblates, Grandin Office, Edmonton
For the last few years a few of us working as archivists for various Faith and Religious organizations in Alberta have been trying to establish a special interest group loosely attached to the Archives Society of Alberta (ASA).
In the past, several of us have gotten together for information sessions dealing with issues of common interest to Archivists working within these organizations. Most of us found these sessions useful, according to feedback from those that participated.
So, in December 2004, Jane Bowe-McCarthy, Archivist for the United Church of Canada and Diane Lamoureux, Archivist for the Missionary Oblates, Grandin, hosted a brown-bag lunch session at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. The main objective of the session was to re-establish the group and to try and set up an informal schedule of meetings so that the issues that continue to be of interest to the various organizations can be addressed.
One of the main reasons for forming the group is to provide a support network to other archivists working in or just coming into Faith and Religious Organization Archives - many of whom have had no previous training or real archives experience.
We have called our group - AFROG - Archivists of Faith and Religious Organizations Group.
We have had two meeting to this point, the first was held in December at the Provincial Archives of Alberta and the second was held at Vital Grandin Centre in St. Albert, and was hosted by Diane Lamoureux.
The initial meeting had representatives from the Catholic, United, Anglican and Moravian Church organizations. The group had initial discussions relating to topics of common interest, namely grants and other funding sources, membership in the ASA, types of work that needs to be done, and how to deal with photos and artifacts. These are issues that we have found are ones that we all have to deal with to some degree. The other common issues, of course, are money and man-power. Most of us have a back-log of material to be processed and no time to do the work. A few of us are lucky enough to have volunteers to take care of special projects, but the main bulk of the archival work still falls to the Archivist. For those of us who have our records in public facilities, there is the added difficulty of trying to deal with research and reference requests, and still try to get some archival processing done.
Our second meeting continued the discussion on grants and their availability. We talked some more about artifacts and how to care for them, as well as touched on privacy legislation, research fees and specific situations at the Franciscan Friars and the Sisters of Providence. We have also identified several future topics of discussion, including:
- Copyright and photos
- Oral histories: getting permission to use the information, transcribing the information, etc.
- Classification systems for archives (as part of a Records Management Program)
The next brown-bag meeting is tentatively scheduled for April 6, 2005 from about 11:30am to 1:30pm and will be hosted by William Brese of the Canadian Moravian Archives, located at 2304-38 Street.
We invite Archivists for other Faith and Religious Organizations in Alberta to join our group. If you are interested, please feel free to contact Diane Lamoureux or Jane Bowe-McCarthy at the Provincial Archives of Alberta. Their e-mail addresses are: