Deseronto Archives

Wrapped volumes at Peterborough Museum and Archives

Every year, the Municipal Archives Interest Group of the Archives Association of Ontario holds an Open House at one of its member archives. On September 26, archivists from around the province gathered at Peterborough for a tour of the Peterborough Museum and Archives, a business meeting and a barbecue. This sort of event is very valuable for the province’s municipal archivists, many of whom are the only professional archivist on their municipality’s staff.

Peterborough’s archives are extremely short of space (something that is true of many other archives, too), so it was interesting to see how Mary Charles, the archivist there, had managed to make the most of the shelf space that is available to her. One solution that seemed to work well in a number of ways was the wrapping of bound volumes in acid-free paper. Archivists often enclose bound volumes in specially-made acid-free boxes, but this is quite an expensive option and can take up a significant amount of shelf-space. By wrapping them in paper, the volumes are protected, easier to handle and can be stacked more closely together without causing them further damage. The volumes were a source of dust and the air quality of the storage space (which is also the reading room and archives workspace) has improved markedly as a result of this work.

Peterborough’s fall colours seem a little in advance of Deseronto’s right now. This is a view of the lift lock on the Trent-Severn Waterway in the city:

Lift Locks on the Trent-Severn Waterway