ARST 596 – Douglas College Archives

Organization
Douglas College Archives

Address
700 Royal Avenue
New Westminster, B.C. V3M 5Z5
Canada
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Supervising Librarian/Archivist
Name: Arianna Nagle
Email: naglea@douglascollege.ca

Purpose of the project:
Douglas College has campuses located in New Westminster and Coquitlam, however, at different times since its founding in 1970 the College also had campuses in Surrey, Richmond, Langley, and Maple Ridge. As a result, our Archives contains a range of architectural and construction records on which we are eager to establish intellectual control while ensuring their long-term preservation. The purpose of this project is to gain intellectual and physical control over the College’s historical architectural records. The student will arrange and describe a series of records related to the College’s physical plant, while also surveying our holdings for any other architectural, design, or construction records throughout the Archives. With information gained during this survey, the student will develop recommendations for the processing and preservation of this type of record (including a list of necessary supplies). This professional experience will include time to review provided resources on the subject of architectural records in an archival context.

Summary of activities required to carry out the project:

  • Review resources (e.g. articles, book chapters) on architectural records.
  • Arrange and describe Physical Plant series (~15 boxes).
  • Survey holdings for additional architectural records, updating descriptions
    where appropriate.
  • Initiate the processing and re-housing of some items.
  • Provide recommendations for the preservation of architectural records (including supplies).

Expectations of the end result of the project, for both host and student:

The student will gain knowledge of architectural, design, and construction records in an archival context. The student will gain experience carrying out arrangement and description, preparing descriptions for ingest into Access to Memory (AtoM) databases, consulting descriptive standards, surveying institutional records, authoring recommendations, and processing materials for long-term preservation. We expect this project to result in:

  1. The Physical Plant series arranged and described,
  2. Creation of a document identifying other architectural materials in our holdings, and
  3. Produce a short report with preservation recommendations for our architectural materials.

Depending on time and student interest, there will opportunities to process certain architectural materials, preparing them for long-term preservation (e.g. oversized blueprints).

Time periods in which the project could be supervised:

  • Winter Term 1 (September – December)
  • Winter Term 2 (January – April)

Is there a deadline by which the project must be completed?

  • Winter Term 1: December 20th, 2024
  • Winter Term 2: April 25th, 2025

Considering the project requirements, please suggest suitable coursework as pre-requisite or co-requisite:

Required:
Completion of the ARST core courses.

Recommended:

  • ARST 550 Management of Audiovisual and Non-Textual Archives
  • ARST 587 Preservation

Applications will be assessed on a rolling basis.