Honoring Our Hospital's History: A Preservation and Digitization Initiative

ABSTRACT

There is limited literature on hospital archives projects. Hospitals understandably have a strong focus on patient care, but there is still a critical need to keep institutional archives. Among their many uses, institutional archives preserve corporate memory, provide evidence of interactions with community, and assist in contemporary decision making. This column describes a university-hospital partnership to undertake a one-year project to preserve, detail, and digitize ten boxes, or approximately 3.8 meters, of materials dating from 1980 to 2006. This project serves as a model for other hospital or health care facilities wanting to preserve and more actively engage with their archival collections.

KEYWORDS:

• Archives
• corporate records
• digitization
• hospitals
• preservation

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Stefania Zimarino, library assistant, for her role in scanning photographs and Elizabeth Anne Johnson, archives student, for her work in sorting and describing materials.

Notes on Contributors

Kerry Macdonald, MLIS, AHIP ([email protected]) is Librarian, Elizabeth Dafoe Library, University of Manitoba, 25 Chancellors Circle, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2N2, Canada. Jordan Bass, MA, History (Archival Studies) ([email protected]) is Medical Archivist, Neil John Maclean Library, University of Manitoba, 727 McDermot Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3E 3P5, Canada. Toby Maloney ([email protected]) is Public Relations Manager, Seven Oaks General Hospital, 2300 McPhillips Street, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2V 3M3, Canada.