Hello group mates!

Hi, Lisa.

Well, my first wiki lesson of the day is when writing a response to a discussion thread, if you notice a "New post. Update thread." link, don't click it. You will lose the post you have been working on. So here we go with round two.

Anyway...looking good! There are a lot of "dazzling details," as the marking people would say, in your page that I found particularly interesting! Regarding the structure, I think you could put the legislation section under "History and Development" and "Responsibility of Records Management" under the provincial section (as Katie also suggested).

You likely already have plans to expand on some of these items, but they are just the things that jumped out at me as most interesting, which I had questions about, or which I would be most eager to read more about:

1. In the history and development section, I am especially looking forward to reading more about the archives during the depression years and the later strategies to reduce the rate of record accumulation.
2. The Task Force on Intellectual Controls sounds a bit like something out of 1984, but I'll bet it was quite an undertaking. I was curious about who all was on the task force, how they would have been chosen, and what the process was...that is if you have the time and resources to go into that stuff.
3. In the archival holdings section, perhaps you could highlight 2-3 of their most well-known or well-used fonds with a couple of sentences on each?
4. That bit about the archives being part of the Department of Travel and Publicity was a bizarre little detail. Maybe that would be something to talk more about in the history and development section...the various departments and ministries that the archives has reported to over the years?
   

If you would like me to expand on any of these or have questions, please feel free to let me know.

I thought that Katie made a good point when she said: "Also, it may be nice to mention municipal and community archives briefly in the History and Development section, just to introduce them and to make it clear that this entry is about the many archives in Ontario, rather than just the Provincial Archives of Ontario." I was initially unsure if "Archives of Ontario" referred to a singe institution or all of the archives in the province, and mentioning the other types of archives in the province or a slight wording change could clear that up nicely.

Great stuff so far, Lisa!

Thanks Chelsea. Great ideas and sorry to hear about your first wiki response disappearing into the virtual realm. Sounds a lot like my first draft!

At first I had a difficult time discerning between Archives of Ontario and Archives in Ontario. Archives of Ontario is the more common name to the Provincial archives, whereas Archives in Ontario can refer to all the archives within the province. What are your thoughts about changing the title to distinguish the difference?

In response to your points: 1. I recall one of my resources touched on the subject of the depression years and the archives of Ontario. They were focused more on the Provincial archives since I haven't found any other resources yet to suggest that a municipal archives existed yet. I need to find more resources on the history of the municipal archives as per both of your suggestions to incorporate it into the history heading. 2. I was also really interested in this mysterious task force when I was reading the article as well. It doesn't go into detail on who they were or how they were selected but it certainly covered the procedure that was followed to implement the change. It's an interesting read and it goes into detail about the pro's and con's. My guess is the article was published to assist other organizations in developing a methodology for changing their procedures. I'll make sure I add more about this in the wiki. 3. I was thinking about including a short list, e.g. photographs, maps, etc. to give a few general ideas. I found a bit of history surrounding the acquisition of their art collection so I'll add that as a more detailed example. 2-3 is a great start, thanks. 4. Perhaps I could include a subheading regarding the power structure of the archives under the history section. I do have more information concerning the history of the Provincial archives and their power structure. Or perhaps I could write up the history section following a timeline (maybe with bullet points) and incorporate both the provincial, municipal, and community archives within the timeline. What are your thoughts on this? Thanks for your help, I'm enjoying bouncing these ideas back and forth!

Hi, Lisa!

Yes, I think if you want the focus to be on all of the archives in the province rather than just the provincial archives, then the title "Archives of Ontario" is the way to go. One question I have related to this (and feel free to tell me to go jump of a bridge) is whether you are maybe taking on too much with the topic of archives in Ontario rather than the Archives of Ontario? If you've spent a lot of time on the municipal archives portion or you don't think you have enough on the provincial side, feel free to ignore me, but it's something to think about. Another student in a class further down the road may want to take on municipal archives as a group or focus on a particular city archives.

Part of what got me thinking about this was your proposal to include a timeline, which I like a lot, but a timeline that includes provincial, municipal and community archives seemed like it would be a lot to take on and might get a bit confusing. Again, feel free to ignore me here, but it feels very ambitious. Of course, you are very ambitious, so there you go. The time line could definitely include shifts in the power structure of the archives, since you have more about that, and I think it would provide a nice clear good snapshot for better understanding of the system. Also if you decided to focus on just the provincial archives, you could expand more on the holdings, if that is of interest to you. Just some thoughts!

Hi Lisa, Feel free to tell me to go jump off a bridge as well, but I also wonder if you might consider making this entry just about the provincial Archives of Ontario. I say this because it is a worthy topic by itself, and focusing only on one institution would open up space and time to expand more on details about it.

That being said, talking about the entire network of archives in Ontario is also quite interesting, just a lot to talk about. I feel like the title of the entry in this case would be "Archives in Ontario," or maybe "Archival Institutions in Ontario." If you do stick with this route you may consider mentioning or adding a link to the Archives Association of Ontario (http://aao-archivists.ca/index.php).

I agree with Katie (and with Cristen above) that talking about the entire provincial archival network would be very interesting (speaking of which, I have becoming very fascinated by the collaborative acquisition agreement in Nova Scotia...have to learn more about that when I have more time)...buuuuuuut...I do imagine that most of your scholarly / non-website resources are probably about the provincial archives itself, and a lot of the subsections you were planning to talk about (like the archivist and the records management function) relate to the provincial repository rather than municipal or communities archives. And, as Katie says, the provincial archives is a worthy topic in its own right!