This week, I’ve had the opportunity to continue working on an ongoing project here at the museum: film evaluation and preservation. This involves examining our photograph collections and assessing negatives for deterioration. An integral part of this process is Garry Morrison, our Image Technician at the museum. Garry has been with us here for 17 years, having previously worked as a professional photographer. 

     Why is this important? This process is required in order to monitor any deterioration. As they degrade differently, the preservation of film materials can be complicated. There are three common types of film:  nitrate, acetate, and polyester. Polyester (pictured above) is considered the only stable film-based material, while nitrate and acetate are not. When nitrate and acetate films deteriorate they can pose health and safety risks to people and surrounding collections. The Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives contains all three of these film-based materials, and consequently has to perform routine evaluations of all collections to ensure that they are being adequately cared for.
 
     Nitrate film was used from the mid-1880s until the 1950s. If not kept at a low temperature, it will begin to deteriorate.  As nitrate degrades, it emits toxic fumes that are dangerous to both people and other collections. The gas that is emitted is also highly flammable, and high temperatures increase the risk of combustion. However, all archives at the SCMA are continuously monitored for changes in both temperature and humidity.  So while our collections still contain a small percentage of nitrate film, very few show any signs of deterioration. 

     With the popularization of cellulose acetate in the 1920s, the use of nitrate film began to decrease. Acetate, also known as “safety film”, was introduced as a substitute for nitrate. When acetate degrades it emits an acidic vapor. Though not toxic to people, it can damage surrounding collections. In order to track any deterioration that occurs, the museum performs a film-based inventory and evaluation. 
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     How do we do this? First, we pull a photo from the archives and check to see if it has a negative. Then, we can identify film type/base (nitrate, acetate, polyester). This is where things can get complicated- and this is where Garry comes in! With a background in photography, he knows exactly what to look for how to assess levels of deterioration. 

     We begin by checking to see if the negative is a real, or just a copy of the original negative. Usually, a copy negative is an acetate copy of what was originally nitrate film. To do this, we check to see if there is any edge printing (words printed on the border), such as: “nitrate” or “safety” (acetate). A manufacturer/trade name (i.e.“kodak”) on the border signifies a polyester film base. Other techniques used for film type identification include “notch codes”: the shapes printed on the edge of the film. Nitrate film contains “V” shaped notches, while acetate film includes a “U” shaped notch printed on the edge. However, edge printing was not always used and notch codes are not always present (or intact). Therefore, we often rely on Garry’s trained eye to be able to differentiate between film bases.

     After we have identified the type of film, we can rate the level of deterioration. This is done though the use of a rating scale. The scales for nitrate and acetate are separate, because different processes occur as they begin to degrade.  The deterioration of nitrate begins with the photo yellowing and the emission of nitric acid, while as acetate degrades it begins to curl and warp. The negative pictured below is in good condition, and it was given a Level 1 rating (no deterioration). 



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​      What do we do with all of this information? The inventory and evaluation process requires that the museum keep records of all our findings. This allows us to track the condition of our film-based collections to ensure the ongoing preservation of our collection into the future.  

Over the past several years, the museum has taken on a student during the summer months to help with extra visitors. This year, I will be joining the team! My name is Eva Miller and I’m the 2017 Summer Student for the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. I am currently in my second year of the nursing program at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. I was raised in Gibsons, and I’m excited to be able to spend my summer helping out at an organization so important to our community!

Throughout the course of my time here at the Museum, I hope to learn more about the history of the Sunshine Coast, as well as further my understanding about what happens behind the scenes. Having little prior experience in archival/curatorial studies, the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives is a fantastic place for me to gain knowledge in the processes that are taken to keep collections and exhibits cared for. During the summer, I will have the opportunity to learn more about research procedures, collections care/documentation, and database software. I’ll also be putting out blog posts on varying topics, including Nursing on the Sunshine Coast.

I hope that my time here at the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives will be a great way to learn more about the community that so many of us are lucky enough to call home.

Drop by the museum Wednesday to Sunday and say hi!

I just wanted to write a quick post on my last day of work here at the Museum.

I wanted to let everyone know that I have had a wonderful time this summer. I have learned an infinite amount about not only technical aspects of Museum work, but about community involvement and communication. This summer has been full of fun adventures, like learning how to assemble exhibits and writing text panels, newspaper articles, and blog posts!

I am extremely happy that the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives decided to add me to their family this summer. I wanted to say a special thank you to Matthew, Margo, and Garry for working with me all summer long - it's been a wonderful experience and I hope to keep in touch for a long time! A special thanks goes to Garry for sharing his desk with me.

To everyone else I worked with through the summer - though less closely than those I shared an office with - it was such a pleasure to meet and get to know you. I look forward to visiting Gibsons again and knowing that I may run into you on the street!

And thank you - the Museum visitors - for making this such a wonderful summer. It would not have been so successful without your continued support to the Museum.

I look forward to seeing everyone again!

Goodbye!

Drew Beard
Museum Assistant, 2016

​Twigg, Alan. Hubert Evans: The First 93 Years. Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 1985. Print.

​          The newest addition to our Social Media outreach program is Instagram, which helps us reach a whole other demographic. This new audience, which includes teens and adults from their early twenties to thirties, is the one that will keep the history of the Sunshine Coast alive. Through social media we keep them interested and engaged with history and the artifacts in our collection, therefore ensuring the continued interest in the rich history of the Sunshine Coast.
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          But how do we add a new social media platform into our outreach program? It is not as simple as just making an account and starting to post. First, research needs to be done. To convince the Manager that Instagram was a beneficial program I did research on the benefits of Instagram to businesses and  museums, how Instagram works, and how we as a Museum would use it. After the initial green light I compiled lists of post templates, accounts to interact with, and how to ‘tag’ posts. (‘Tagging’ is the process through which posts are categorized within the social media platform so that they are easily accessible; this is commonly done through keywords and phrases.) This ensures that anyone will be able to efficiently run the account. Now that the report is complete we can start to post and interact with our new audience. As an added bonus Instagram is popular with small local businesses and other museums worldwide, allowing us create a great dialogue locally and around the world. Through this connection we learn from them, and are able to communicate with our visitors in new and exciting ways! 
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​         This process is used because it is also simple and straightforward. Pictures are taken, uploaded, then the best one is chosen and uploaded to the database. There are no tricky steps or big processes to endure besides choosing the best photo to represent your object. The only difference between the scanner and the camera is that one is for documents while the other is for artifacts.
Just for fun I will link you to a few other institutions that have online collections. Each of these has a different way their information is presented, so have fun looking through!
         http://www.uvic.ca/library/featured/collections/index.php
         https://open.library.ubc.ca/
         http://library.harvard.edu/digital-collections

          Lately I have been presented with a lot of questions about Hubert Evans: who he was, where he came from, and why he was important. I had no idea how to answer any of these questions; all I knew was that Hubert Evans built the handliner (a double ended rowboat) that we host in our Maritime exhibit at the Museum.

          These questions got me thinking, and thinking led me to researching, and researching led me to some pretty cool conclusions about Hubert Evans – you can look for those conclusions in a future blog post or article. Instead, I thought I might take you through the research process so you can see the steps to making an authoritative research report, this time featuring Hubert Evans.

          The first thing that needs to be done when researching is look for reference material, referred to as sources, on what you are trying to find. These sources can be anything from first-hand interviews or journals from the person or time period you are trying to find, to someone’s personal blog. This is where the diagram above will be referenced – an excellent source is at the top of the pyramid, while a poor source is at the bottom. Personal blogs are not something that you should take from directly. It may lead you to a legitimate source, like a newspaper article or an academic paper, but you shouldn’t use the blog itself for anything other than a stepping-stone. You will also come across Secondary and Tertiary sources a lot.

          Primary sources, aka something that came directly from the person, place, or thing you are researching, are great sources that you should always look for first. They are usually what you would build your research around. Secondary sources are academic articles, biographies, or professional pieces written about the thing you are researching, and provide opinions and commentary, while tertiary sources give a summary of the primary source.

          As they are important to our collection, it is important to note that newspapers can be primary, secondary, or tertiary sources depending on the content. If it is written by the person you are researching, it is a primary source. If it provides commentary or discussion on what you’re researching, it’s a secondary source. If it is a summary of what you’re researching, it’s a tertiary source.

          With that in mind, how lucky am I to work in a Museum where I have a database with thousands of primary sources at my fingertips?

          Just like in my last couple of blog posts, I started with broad searches using the keywords “Hubert Evans” or just “Evans”. I searched through our Library, Photos, and Objects, and Archives, but only got a few hits. Just two books mention him: Remembering Roberts Creek: 1889 – 1955, and Hubert Evans: The First 93 Years by Alan Twigg. Three oral histories mention him in reference to his fishing career and the handliner boats he made.  We have three photos of him; one as a young man near his boat filled with fishing gear, and another of him as an old man standing outside his home. Yet another picture features him on a tractor digging at the bank of Roberts Creek, but his face is hidden from view.

          After all that we have a couple of viable primary sources: the photo, the handliner, a newspaper article, a letter to Elinor and Lorns Daly, and a pamphlet of poetry publications called Bits and Pieces. Hubert Evans: The First 93 Years by Alan Twigg is a biography, and therefore counts as a secondary source, as does Remembering Roberts Creek. Hubert Evans books, while fictional stories, count as primary sources because they were written directly by him. Son of the Salmon People and The New Front Line are the only two works of his that are in the collection. After documenting these finds and taking notes about Evans’ interesting life I found I was not quite satisfied – I wanted to know more about the different stories that Evans had written.

          This is where I step back and search more broadly. You may not want to use Google or a similar search engine out of fear that you will end up on personal blogs, but in this case that can be helpful. What I was searching for was a list of pieces authored by Hubert Evans – even if I end up on someone’s blog I can use the information I find there to find publishing information. Publishing information leads me to the publisher’s website, and that leads me to a comprehensive list of titles that Hubert Evans authored!

          Despite how straightforward that sounds, this was tricky. Hubert had many books published by many different publishers, and some of his stories were reprinted at later dates. This is where I would refer back to secondary sources like the biography (Hubert Evans: The First 93 Years) – that will have authoritative information about the works that Evans published. For example, the publishing date I found for his most popular novel, Mist on the River was 1973. When I took another look at The First 93 Years I found that 1973 was the reprint date: the initial publishing date was in 1954, and was under a different publishing house.

          After I acquired all this information I compiled it into a masterlist of Hubert Evans information. Because I am an English major at university I like MLA (Modern Language Association) formatted citations so I based this masterlist off that format, with some changes for ease of access. I also included the notes I took from The First 93 Years and Remembering Roberts Creek. This masterlist will be referenced often for research purposes, so making everything easy to read and find was the first priority.

          So there you have the research process! If you yourself have anything you’d like to research, now you know where to go. Make sure you come down to visit us at the SCMA with your research requests; we would be happy to help you look through a wide range of sources!

     Do you know what this is? We didn’t.  Our artifact collection contains over 7264 items, so on occasion we come across an artifact with an unknown function. We try not to use or alter the artifact in any way, so most of the time there is no clear way of figuring out what the heck something does. As a new staff member here at the museum, I have a particularly hard time figuring this type of thing out.

​     As you can see, the item has a little white mark on the bottom – this is the only change we make. On that little white mark is an accession number, which helps us figure out what an item is. “Accessioning” is the formal process by which an artifact enters into our collection, meaning that after the accession is complete we have legal ownership and responsibility of the item and its preservation. The number assigned to that item is then put into the database, and if you search for that number you should find the item! But what happens when you don’t have the number? I’ll take you through both the ‘with’ and ‘without number’ processes.
               
     Accession numbers for objects follow a specific pattern, for example: 1996.001.01. The first four numbers are the year the object was accessioned (1996), followed by a number that represents which ‘group’ the object came in with (001, meaning this was the 1st group of things to be accessioned in 1996), and finally the number of this specific item within its group (01, meaning it was the 1st item in this batch). If there is a letter following this last number, it means that there are multiple pieces of the same artifact. For example, one of the pieces I will talk about in this post has two parts to one pipe, and is thus differentiated in the accession number using ‘a’ and ‘b’. The number looks like this: 1978.013.40a or 1978.013.40b.
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     There are two ways to go about this: one way for if you have the accession number, and one for if you don’t. If you don’t have the accession number you can go through the archival database, searching with keywords to see if you can find a match in the pictures or description – very similar to how we proceeded in the last blog post I made! The problem with this is that sometimes the entries do not have pictures, only descriptions, which makes it hard to confirm that you’ve found the item you’re looking for.  For this item I used the keywords “black” and “metal” in a broad search, and came up with a couple possible matches.