Indigenous Collections Safeguarded and Ready for Sharing
COLLABORATION
THROUGH DIGITIZATION By Lou-ann Neel Acting Head of Indigenous Collections and Repatriation
Over the past three years, the Indigenous Collections and Repatriation department (ICAR) has been steadily working on a range of digitization activities, including the digitization of the audio and video collection.
E
arlier this year, 16,000 photo cards were added to the Royal BC Museum’s online database. Until now, these photos were only accessible during in-person visits. Over the years, community members from Indigenous communities across the province had added written notes to the back of the photo cards, piecing together the history of each photo. To preserve this work, the front and back of each card was scanned, making it possible for community members to view and learn from the existing notes. And since the photos are now stored in an online database, community members can continue to add additional information about each photo.
The Indigenous Repatriation Handbook was published by the Royal BC Museum in 2019.
In addition to the scanning and digitizing of the photo collection, the ICAR audio collection is also in the process of being digitized. The audio collection comprises recordings collected over the past 60 years—including linguistic recordings (i.e., language lessons), recordings of feasts and potlatches, and interviews with fluent speakers from a wide range of First Nations communities in British Columbia. In addition, there are recordings created by researchers studying in the fields of anthropology, archaeology, ethnology and linguistics. Of the 4,000+ audio recordings, 2,329 have been digitized so far, and the remainder will be digitized once copyright and access rights are cleared with the individuals who created the recordings. While this is a significant milestone in our work to digitize the audio and photo collections, there is still much to be done.
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