December - January in the Archives

Open hours: The Archives were closed to the public during December, normally a very quiet time for enquiries and a busy time outside the archives for volunteers. The archivist and volunteers returned in the second week of January and had drop-in hours on 4 Tuesday mornings as usual.

Enquiries: in January, 12, of which 2 were research visits in person.

Final total for 2023: 149, a small advance on 2020, 2021 and 2022. Of the 64 enquiries received after the archives opened for visitors in person in July, 15 (23%) were made in person, 11 (17%) by telephone and the remaining 38 (59%) by email. More enquiries by all methods in 2024, please!

On-site volunteer hours logged: 3 in December, 25 inJanuary

Volunteer projects:

municipal demolished-property files indexing
reference files overhaul & adding 2 recent large accessions of news cuttings on Oak Bay topics
physical numbering of items in a new large accession of personal papers
maps survey: listing and photographing rolled oversize maps/plans/drawings, hitherto undescribed
tagging (subject indexing) Taylor family photos online - remote project
oral history transcripts - checking/revising

Digital images:

Annandale collection numbered, listed, digitization of 105 photos completed

Views on Flickr in December & January: total 247K by 9 Jan, so 14K in Dec-early Jan (a huge spike) and another 2000 to the end of January.

27,722 views of individual photos in 2023, passed 250,000 total views at the end of January.

There are now 11,000 photos on the growing Oak Bay Archives Flickr account in addition to the 1300 on the District website.

Archivist's work:

PR 131 Mayhew house section 2/10 (plans & drawings) renumbered, description updated and online
continuing shelf check & locations register update
processing new accessions
digitization as above, further processing of Annandale collection
volunteer management including monthly bulletins, year-end online meeting

Questions or appointment requests? Please get in touch!

Website: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives
Photo Search: https://www.oakbay.ca/archives/photographs
More photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/oakbayarchives/
Blog posts: https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives
Email: archives@oakbay.ca
Phone: 250-598-3290

- Post by Anna Sander, 2 February 2024.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2024, February). 'December & January in the Archives.' [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/admin/projects/archives/news_feed/december-january-in-the-archives [date accessed].