After a rainstorm five years ago forced the city of Winnipeg to move its archives to a smaller facility in a former warehouse, several historians have expressed their concern about the future of this irreplaceable collection.
According to a CBC report, “The city’s archival collection houses municipal and privately donated documents dating back to 1873, and is valued at more than $4 million for insurance purposes….”
Heather Bidzinski, chair of the Association for Manitoba Archives, told CBC the city’s collection is considered to be among the richest municipal collections in the country.
Conservation of this collection is more important than ever, eg the complete distruction of Brazil’s National Museum in a fire last week or so – 20 million artifacts destroyed forever!!
Let’s hope the loss of Brazil’s national museum will be a huge wake-up call for small and large museums around the world.
Yes, it is a great reason to ensure items are digitized and made available on at least their intranet! Not the same as the original but better than losing it all.