A First Look at the Acquisition and Appraisal of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Fonds: or, SELECT * FROM VANOC _Records AS Archives WHERE Value=“true”;

  • Courtney C. Mumma
  • Glenn Dingwall
  • Sue Bigelow

Abstract

Since 2008, the City of Vancouver Archives has been working to develop a digital archives. Much of the funding and accompanying urgency were linked to the City’s obligation to preserve the records of the Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC). This paper describes some of the difficulties encountered in acquiring VANOC’s digital records and the Archives’ struggles to map the different tasks involved in acquisition and appraisal against the digital processing workflow, which is constrained by the technology used, and therefore less flexible than for analogue records. Complexities are due both to the records creator’s technical environment as well as limitations imposed by the Archives’ digital preservation solution. The paper also considers some of the ways in which these core archival activities may diverge from long-established practices when moving into the digital environment.

RÉSUMÉ

Les Archives de la ville de Vancouver travaillent depuis 2008 à développer des archives numériques. La plus grande partie du financement et le sentiment d’urgence face à ce projet furent liés à l’obligation de la ville de préserver les documents du Comité d’organisation des Jeux olympiques d’hiver de 2010 (COVAN). Ce texte décrit quelques-unes des difficultés rencontrées à l’acquisition des documents numériques du COVAN. Il documente aussi les efforts des Archives pour faire correspondre les différentes tâches liées à l’acquisition et à l’évaluation du processus de travail relié au traitement des documents numériques, qui est limité par les technologies utilisées et donc moins flexible que pour les documents analogues. Les complexités sont dues à la fois à l’environnement technique utilisé par les créateurs des documents et aux limites imposées par la solution de préservation numérique des Archives. Ce texte examine aussi certaines façons dont les activités archivistiques de base peuvent différer des pratiques bien établies quand on les transpose dans un environnement numérique.

Author Biographies

Courtney C. Mumma

Courtney C. Mumma is a digital archivist at the City of Vancouver Archives, British Columbia. A 2009 MAS/MLIS graduate of the University of British Columbia School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies, she is responsible for managing the acquisition of the Archives of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. She is the current Vice President of the Archives Association of British Columbia (AABC), and a researcher with the InterPARES 3 and Digital Records Forensics projects at UBC.

Glenn Dingwall

Glenn Dingwall is a digital archivist at the City of Vancouver Archives, British Columbia, where his primary responsibility is the development of the Digital Archives program. Glenn has a BA in History from Simon Fraser University (1996) and an MAS from the University of British Columbia (2003). Since graduating from UBC, he has worked for the City in several capacities as both a records manager and archivist. Glenn has also worked as both a research assistant and a researcher with the InterPARES projects at UBC.

Sue Bigelow

Sue Bigelow is Digital Conservator, City of Vancouver Archives, British Columbia, where she is responsible for the preservation of analogue and digital records, and the Archives’ digitization program. She has a Master of Art Conservation degree from Queen’s University from the era when PCs were invented. As an adjunct professor, she taught Preservation at the University of British Columbia, School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies until 2007.

Archivaria 72 cover
Published
2011-12-02
How to Cite
Mumma, Courtney C., Glenn Dingwall, and Sue Bigelow. 2011. “A First Look at the Acquisition and Appraisal of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Fonds: Or, SELECT * FROM VANOC _Records AS Archives WHERE Value=‘true’;”. Archivaria 72 (December), 93-122. https://archivaria.ca/index.php/archivaria/article/view/13361.
Issue
Archivaria 72: Special Issue on Electronic Records to Born-Digital Archives: Evolution in Theory and Practice (Fall 2011)
Section
Articles

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