Major changes are in the immediate future for the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan’s archival centre in Saskatoon and Montreal’s municipal archives.
The Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan will close its Saskatoon centre to the public December 21. They are in the process of moving the Saskatoon office and records to Regina and consolidating the archives there. It is expected the move will be completed by August 2019.
City of Montreal Archives
Also in December, the Archives de Montréal will leave city hall where it has been for 100 years. The archives will be relocated in early January to 5800 rue Saint-Denis, near the Rosemont Metro station, a good hour walk from the current location in Old Montreal.
All staff and departments are moving out of city hall in order for major renovations to begin in 2019. The work should be completed in 2022. During the three-year period, the building will be closed.
The Archives de Montréal moves out of city hall for three years. Photo: Erik Dunham, Wikimedia Commons.
While most city hall employees are relocating to a neighbouring building, the Archives de Montréal must move to a different location because of the sheer volume of archival records.
In preparing for the move, archives employees have spent the year taking a detailed inventory of the collections.
According to the Archives de Montréal, this mammoth move will ultimately improve the preservation of the records. Part of the city hall renovations includes work on the vaults used by the archives that were built in 1919 and 1952. These vaults have become obsolete over time.
The vaults are fireproof, and that is what saved Montreal’s archives when the city hall burned to the ground in 1922 and had to be rebuilt.
The Archives de Montréal was created in 1913 and includes historical documents from 1796 to present day and more than a million photographs.
The archives consultation room closes at the end of the day, November 30. The move will begin December 3.
Starting January 8, the consultation room at the new location will be accessible by appointment. Staff can be reached at consultation_archives@ville.montreal.qc.ca.
No word yet on exactly when the Archives de Montréal will return to city hall, but it certainly will not be before 2022 when the renovations are expected to be finished. On its website, the Archives de Montréal said it will return “in a few years.”
Question … after renovations is the archives expected to move back to the original location?
Good question. I added the following to the end of the blog post: No word yet on exactly when the Archives de Montréal will return to city hall, but it certainly will not be before 2022 when the renovations are expected to be finished. On its website, the Archives de Montréal said it will return “in a few years.”