Have I told you how much I like the Nova Scotia Archives, even though not one of my ancestors lived there?
Here are four reasons to like the Nova Scotia Archives, including two new ones.
1. Easy to understand language
The Nova Scotia Archives website is written for the average person to understand, not other archivists. Too often websites of archival centres are organized and written from an archivists’, not a user’s, perspective. I’d even go as far to say they write for genealogists.
Their research guides are a perfect example of the quality of their writing style.
In my blog post, Nova Scotia Archives’ new genealogy guide makes it easy to find resources, I wrote: “The guide is written in an easy-to-understand language from the point of view of a genealogist who wants to explore the archives, which makes it especially useful.” Great research guides.
2. ‘What’s New’ on home page
They post a What’s New section. Great idea. Simple idea. This means you don’t have to keep checking the website to figure out what has recently been added. What is even better is the Nova Scotia Archives puts the new items on the home page. No, it’s not rocket science, but not every archives does this.
3. New blog ‘talks’ to its users
This week, Nova Scotia Archives has gone another step further with reaching out to their client base by launching a blog, New Tales from Old Records. As they do on their website, they have written the blog for the layperson — no technical, archival language here.
In the first blog post, the Archives explains how early governmental financial papers can be a source of “compelling stories.” It seems they know genealogists love to add flesh to the bones of ancestors.
The Archives writes, “The more substantial records, like these letters and reports, allow us to quickly construct the bones of the story, while the receipts, bills, and other pieces flesh in the details.”
4. Timely cooking for this weekend
Just in time for Thanksgiving weekend in Canada, the Archives has appropriately added a new item to its website, What’s Cooking? Food, Drink and the Pleasures of Eating in Old-Time Nova Scotia.
They have created an online treasury of cookery, digitizing about 1,000 old handwritten or early printed recipes. And if you can’t find the perfect recipe for your Thanksgiving dinner among those early recipes, they have also digitized, in their entirety, 17 cookbooks published in the province before 1950.
