May 2024 in the Archives

Public open hours: The Archives were open for enquiries and on-site research appointments 17.5 hours/week as usual, with drop-in hours on Tuesday mornings.

Enquiries: 11, of which 1 in person. People have been getting into their gardens this month!

Running total for 2024: 74

On-site volunteer hours logged: 49.5 (5 volunteers)

Volunteer projects (ongoing):

municipal demolished-property files indexing
historic building permits indexing, now complete to end of 1955 - view here
scanning photographs
physical numbering of hundreds of items in several collections of personal papers, preparatory to cataloguing

Digital images:

Larry McCann & UVic students' photographic sample of Oak Bay houses by building era, photos taken ca. 2000-2002: last section done, project complete with 1700 photos - view here

Views on Flickr in May: 9K (total 288.2K by 31 May, since 3 Mar 2022).

How accurate are these view counts? Not very - they are likely to include more than individual views of specific photos by individual viewers. But at least they demonstrate continuing interest, and there's always a big spike in the days after an upload. View numbers on individual photo pages are more accurate. The OB Houses photo survey and the house photos from appraisal cards, unsurprisingly, are the most popular; an unexpected star is Mrs Burgess' diary from North Saanich in 1907!

Archivist's work:

scanning and processing of McCann digital images as above
preparing reference and outreach materials for summer Night Markets
reviewing and updating catalogue descriptions of PR 106 Pattinson family papers
reviewing and updating catalogue descriptions of PR 127 Barber family papers
new online: complete list of Oak Bay's Councillors (formerly Aldermen) as well as the Reeves/Mayors.
internal and external enquiries research and responses, facilitating researcher visits, volunteer management & monthly bulletin - #51

A good start to my 5th year at Oak Bay Archives!

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, June 2024.

To cite: Sander, Anna. (2024, June). 'May 2024 in the Archives.' [Blog post]. District of Oak Bay, Archives. Retrieved from https://connect.oakbay.ca/archives/news_feed/may-2024-in-the-archives [date accessed].