Archive:Exec report - Archivist 2009 - 2010

Archivist: Ignacio Rozada

April 16, 2010

I basically picked up where Eric left, particularly regarding the digitization of the club journals and archives. I completed the digitization of the first 25 journals. There was a lot of overlap with what was done by the two previous archivists (Eric and Duncan) in that regard, mostly because files got lost and work had to be redone, a good piece of advice is to be very careful with files, and try to always keep them in a neutral computer. The files for the journals are all in the clubroom computer (or at least will soon be...), these are the first 25, plus 30, 48, 50, 51, and 52. Using an autofeeding copier/scanner is the way to go towards scanning journals, and if properly done, finishing all of them shouldn't take too long. There are about 30 DVDs already burned with the first 25 journals, but there was no time to make decent boxes (something that said basically VOC Journals I-XXV, maybe with a pretty picture.

The journals have not been posted on the VOC website (but should, in my opinion). Some people expressed concern about making available stories and/or pictures that future employers might frown upon, but that could be prevented by posting them on the members-only section of the website (perhaps on the misc docs section, although probably nicer if there was a specific journals section). Another project regarding the journals is to have them OCRed, as in their present state they are not searchable. I looked at some open-source options, but nothing worked properly with the material (text and pictures were complicated), but it did seem like it was a field that was advancing rapidly. The ones that showed the most promise, I believe, were tesseract and ocropus, at least one of them was managed by google. There is a for-pay program called Abbyy fine reader, and we do still have $700 unused from a $1000 grant that Duncan obtained for the purposed of digitization (the difference was spent acquiring a scanner, which unfortunately doesn't work on Linux, but is otherwise fine), so that would be one way to spend it (assuming it works).

Regarding the club library, I didn't advance in Eric's cataloguing project. There is software in the computer, but it will probably not work as a proper library as it's a bit of a hassle to turn the computer on to sign books in or out. Having a catalogue of the books currently owned by the club on the website would be a nice thing to do, and the books are still fairly well organized.

Regarding the other club archives (photo albums, club minutes, hut logbooks, etc), a radical approach was taken, partly because some of the material was in bad shape (specially old photo albums). We decided to donate as much as they would take to the university archives. They would, in turn, scan what they thought was the most interesting material, post it on their website, and give us copies in high definition. I received receipts from Erwin Wodarczak stating that, as well as a list of the material that they received (see the varsityoutdoorclub_at_gmail account, under my name)

Books bought

The budget for book/movie acquisition was $200 this year. I asked for suggestions on the message board, and then went to MEC and bought what I found (except for the Vantage guidebook, which was bought by VOCers on a trip over there). The money spent was $174 (very last minute).

- Hiking from here to WOW (North Cascades), by Kathy and Craig Copeland

- Mountain footsteps (East Kootenay), by Janice Strong

- Stein Valley wilderness guidebook, by Gordon White (new ed)

- Hiking the gulf islands, by Charles Kahn

- Where locals hike in the west Kootenay, by Kathy and Craig Copeland

- Cycling the Kettle Valley Railway, by Dan and Sandra Langford

- Vantage guide book (new edition)

Trips organized

- Skaha rock climbing (May 2009) Easy weekend trip where we guerrilla-camped in a cul-de-sac with a great view

- Indian Arm kayak (October 2009) Great trip, if perhaps a bit expensive (renting kayaks at Deep Cove). Definitely low output and lots of fun. Should be careful of high winds (infrequent but scary).

- Annual Halloween Skaha trip (November 2009) Same as 2008, same camping spot, although I couldn't attend it, so I basically gave pointers to people and the trip happened nicely. About 20 people went I think.