Digging into the archives

Photo: Oliver and District Heritage Society

Oliver's archives are getting some deeper digging thanks to a federal grant.

The Oliver and District Heritage Society is getting $79,000 from Library and Archives Canada to hire two contract workers to sift through what it's calling a "significant backlog" of archives from the area.

That includes maps, scrapbooks, photographs, and original documents that represent a "gold mine" of historical information about Oliver.

The pair of archivists will be dedicated for one full year to working through an estimated 50 linear feet of materials.

“Every archives and museum has a backlog of items waiting to be added to the collection, sitting in limbo,” said ODHS executive director Manda Maggs in a news release. 

“We are extremely lucky to be given this opportunity to have ours dealt with. I’m very pleased with the level of expertise and experience we were able to bring in on this project, it’s highly specialized work.”

That work includes assessing items, applying conservation methods to reverse or prevent deterioration, and properly arranging and storing them in climate-controlled archival storage.

“The rest of the archival collection is in a pretty good state, all the groundwork in in place. Once we get through the backlog portion, everything will be beautifully organized," Maggs said.

The ODHS will be releasing its more interesting findings through its e-newsletter The Lamplighter, which is released two to three times per year.