The Galt is ahead of the digital curve
Kevin MacLean and Andrew Chernevych examine the Galt’s online database.
Lethbridge—For many in southern Alberta, the Galt is a trusted source of information. It is an educational resource that many residents have visited as students or parents. The Galt is also a leader in several areas among Canadian cultural and heritage institutions. In a recent award for Excellence in Innovation in the Cultural Heritage Sector for the Galt’s automated online booking tool for school groups, a panel of international judges noted: “[The] Galt did a great job doing what many other institutions (many much larger) have not achieved…” This is also the case for the online collections access.
In a column for The Globe and Mail on April 18, Kate Taylor wrote that the Canadian Museums Association estimated in 2016 that only two percent of public collections have been digitized. Taylor also noted that the Royal Ontario Museum only offers online digital access to about 46,500 items out of their collection of 13 million, or “less than half a per cent of the actual collection.”
In contrast, the Galt Museum & Archives offers online access to over one hundred thousand records of objects from our collection of over a million items, including 85,589 photographs and 13,500 artifacts. The items in the database include a name, accession number, physical description, and researched notes.
Taylor indicated in the article that digitizing and offering access to online collections databases is “particularly onerous for small institutions, such as community museums or university art galleries, with limited staff or digital capacity.”
In this regard, the Galt’s online database is all the more remarkable. Archivist Andrew Chernevych notes that “it would not be possible without our volunteers who spend long hours scanning and transcribing. Jim Boychuk, for example, spent thousands of hours over many years digitizing a large collection of negatives donated by the Lethbridge Herald. This is the Galt’s most accessed photographic collection.”
Researching donated items has been a primary area of focus for staff and many volunteers.
“We make a special effort to research the history of the objects that we accept into our collections,” says Kevin MacLean, Collections Technician. “We conduct oral history interviews with our donors about their relationship to the objects they are donating to us. Visitors who look at the database will find extensive historical information for many of the artifacts.”
“The Galt Museum & Archives continues to be a national leader in collections accessibility and community engagement,” says Darrin Martens, CEO/Executive Director. “Collecting and publishing stories related to the objects and archival material in our care is part of our responsible collecting practice and our commitment to scholarship and access to our collective histories.”
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This media release can be found at www.galtmuseum.com/news.
Media Contact:
Graham Ruttan (he/him)
Marketing and Communications Officer
Galt Museum & Archives | Fort Whoop-Up
graham.ruttan@galtmuseum.com
403.320.4009