Blog Posts - Sunshine Coast Museum & Archives

Goodbye!

9/4/2016

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

The Pokemon Phenomenon

9/2/2016

“What the heck is Pokémon GO! ?”, you may ask. You’ve probably been hearing about it everywhere. People of all ages, all over the world, have been playing this game, and small businesses everywhere have been taking advantage of that.

Pokémon GO! is a smartphone game that allows players to walk around and, in real-time, catch small animated creatures named Pokémon. These creatures are based off of real-life animals, and appear on your phone screen either on a pre-set screen or in augmented reality. Appearing in augmented reality simply means that the app connects to your camera so that the Pokémon can appear on the scene in front of you.

Fig. 1: The "Seel" Pokémon, based off of a real-life seal.

Fig. 2: The "Eevee", based loosely off a dog. This is an example of the pre-set Pokémon catching screen.

Fig. 3: The "Weepinbell" is based off of a buttercup flower. This is an example of Augmented Reality - the Weepinbell is on Margo's desk!

But why is this important to Museums? How can we use this gaming application to our benefit?
The Pokémon franchise is unique in that it appeals to everyone. The traditional ‘console' games are marketed and made for children around 10 years old – the protagonist of the games and TV show is a ten year old boy. This emphasis on younger children also contributes to making the games easy to play and learn. What makes the games cross-generational is the fact that the first game came out on February 7th, 1996, establishing a large number fans and well-loved games and characters. The franchise continued to gain popularity and now, twenty years later in 2016, this large, multi-generational following has made Pokémon a global phenomenon. Adults (who were the first children to love the games) and children alike play each game that comes out. This long history of popular games made it easy for Niantic and Nintendo to market the Pokémon games, and especially Pokémon GO!, to people of all ages.

Fig. 4: An example of a traditional 'console'. This is the handheld Gameboy Advance of the early 2000's.

Fig. 5: This is what looking for Pokémon looked like in the old games. You would search through tall grass to find Pokemon.

Fig. 6: This is the new Pokémon GO!. In this game, all the green areas are 'tall grass'.

This accessibility to all ages is exactly what the Museum strives for. I have written about the importance of Social Media in Museum work before and this application definitely falls under that umbrella. Because Pokémon GO! is so widely used and so wildly popular, it is important that we, as a Museum, understand and utilize it. If you’re interested in why Social Media is so important to Museum work, check out this blog post for more information!

With that being said, how do we go about utilizing a gaming app to benefit the Museum? Luckily, the way the game works makes that easy for us. In-game there are set places in real-life that the game has labeled as Pokéstops. These stops provide you with items that are essential to playing the game – things such as Pokéballs for catching Pokémon, and lures for attracting Pokémon. Pokéstops are the cultural, historical, and geographical landmarks that I mentioned before. Each Pokéstop has a picture so that you can make sure you’re in the right place. Museums count as a historical landmark, and are usually counted as Pokéstops! Ours looks like this (picture example). By promoting that we use the game through other social media posts we can prove that we are accessible and interesting to all age groups. As an added benefit, Pokémon often appear near these Pokéstops!

Fig. 7: The Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives as a Pokéstop.

Fig. 8: An example of the type pf Pokémon that may appear near Pokéstops. The "Vulpix" is modeled after a fox.

Fig. 9: A list of items that Pokéstops give you. The items are randomized so you don't get the same items every time.

Another way for us to use to app is one that is already widely being used by popular Museums such as the New Westminster Museum. These Museums are organizing ‘Pokémon GO!’ walking tours, similar to what we do with Dale here at the Sunshine Coast Museum. The tours are advertised widely both on and offline, and are targeted towards those with the Pokémon app on their phones. As I mentioned before, Pokéstops are usually places of historical, cultural, or social significance. These are the same places that walking tours go to! This creates a perfect opportunity for modern technology and history to combine in one fun turn activity. These tours have also proved to be wildly popular, pulling out some of the biggest groups that have ever attended these yours.

Fig. 9: An advertisement for a Pokémon Tour in New Westminster, off their website.

All in all, Pokémon GO! is a fun, accessible way for people to get out of the house. It provides a sense of community, and presents a great opportunity to learn about history and culture.

Hubert Evans: The Man Behind the Boat

8/13/2016

Fig. 1: An elderly Hubert Evans standing outside his home in Roberts Creek.

While working in the Museum I often came across a certain name: Hubert Evans. As some of you may know, we host his boat here in the Museum, but we didn’t have much other information about him. After receiving a number of questions about the nature of the man who built the boat, I decided to find out. I have compiled my findings here for you to read as well: hopefully this will shine some light on the mystery that was Hubert Evans!

Hubert Evans was born in 1860 in Vankleek Hill, Ontario, to William Edwin Evans and Frances Alberta Evans (nee Taylor). A year later they moved to Galt, Ontario, where Edwin took up a job as a schoolteacher at the Galt Collegiate Institute. All three of Hubert’s younger brothers – Charles, Gerald, and William – were born in Galt.

In later interviews Hubert maintained that there were two main things that his parents instilled in him from a very young age: a love of nature and a love of literature. His father would often take the family on camping trips and outdoor explorations, collecting nature samples and observing wildlife. They were also often read to – Edwin would read from the Bible (as a devout member of the Galt Methodist Church that was not surprising), while Frances (their mother) would read from more fantastical works, most notably the popular children’s novel The Water Babies. This love of literature came to fruition for the first time when Hubert won a Lipton’s Tea limerick contest for $1 when he was nine years old. These two differing values created a lifestyle that Hubert followed his entire life: a careful balance between mental and physical exertion. For every written word came something done by hand.

Fig. 2: An example of the outdoor work Evans enjoyed doing. Here he is pictured dredging out the mouth of Roberts Creek, with friend George Klein on the tractor.

After dropping out twice, Hubert graduated from high school and enrolled in the University of Toronto’s forestry program, but never attended. He became the only one of his brothers to not attend University: Charles went on to be a geologist, William became a director of processing at an engineering company, and Gerald became the Head of the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Minnesota. This lack of university education does not mean that Hubert was unsuccessful. He became a journalist at the age of eighteen, something that he always said was imperative in developing his writing style (succinct and to the point, but interesting and engaging). Journalism was something he greatly enjoyed, but after his time in the military in WW1 [as a signaler then a lieutenant of the Machine Gun Corps,] he found himself wanting something different. After a chance meeting with an old friend at a train station, Hubert found himself on his way to his new job and life in the fisheries of Lakelse, BC.

The very next year Hubert married his high school sweetheart, Anna Emily Winter. They had been faithful pen pals ever since their initial meeting in Galt when they were thirteen, even as he journeyed through journalism and military service, and as she graduated from the University of Toronto. With a similar “…own only what you can carry on your back” attitude in addition to this long history, it was no surprise that they eventually married (pg 11) . The official ceremony took place on June 29, 1920, in front of ten witnesses, but the lovebirds had their own private ceremony a few days before.

Fig. 3: An image of Anna from Alan Twigg's biography of Hubert Evans. Found on page 50.

Soon after the wedding Hubert became disillusioned with his increasingly bureaucratic fishery position. This prompted their decision to find somewhere to live along the Coast – from 1920 to 1927 they were on the move. They camped on the beach, stayed with friends, and lived in Cultus Lake and North Vancouver for a couple of years. Their first two children, Elizabeth and Joan, were born during this period. Their son Jonathan wasn’t born until 1930, three years after they had finally settled in Roberts Creek.

Through the years of the Depression Hubert set writing aside to focus on providing for his family. 1932 was the year he began commercial fishing. He used a technique called ‘hand-trolling’ and fished out of his handmade double-ended handliner – the same one that is on display at the Museum. Contrary to popular belief he did not make the boat on his own. He had a close friend and fellow fisherman help him over the course of a winter. We all know that handtrolling was a huge part of life on the Coast – it was how many people survived through the tough times of the depression. Local researcher Larry Westlake is the leading man when it comes to information on hand-trolling traditions on the Coast. Not only does he have many first-hand accounts of Coast fisherfolk but he has also built a fully functional replica of Hubert’s handliner.

Fig. 4: An image of Hubert Evans standing beside his handmade double-ended handliner after a fishing trip.

Eventually, Hubert was able to write as well as fish for a living. In 1949 he started publishing his writing again, writing everything from novels to newspaper serials. Most popular are his works Mist on the River and Son of the Salmon People, which address the struggle of First Nations youth as they try to balance traditional customs and values with the unyielding encroaching Western cultures. Lesser known, but just as impactful, are his works in poetry, plays, and newspaper serials.

At the end of his career By the end of his career Hubert Evans had published 21+ works, and was the quintessential “Coast Man”. He could write, read, build, and fish with the best of them. In addition to this, he had educational achievements: in 1981 he was the recipient of an honorary doctorate by SFU. In true Hubert Evans fashion he refused to make the long trip to the SFU campus, so the committee went to his small home in Roberts Creek. There was also a literary prize named after him: the “Hubert Evans Prize”. It is awarded to the top British Columbian non-fiction writer of the year, every year, in Vancouver.

Fig. 5: An image of Evans and friend Margaret Laurence at Evans' honorary doctorate ceremony in 1981. The picture can be found on pg 108 of Alan Twigg's biography.

If you have any questions about Hubert Evans, his boat, the handtrolling tradition, or his writing, please come into the Museum! We would be happy to answer your questions.

Works Referenced

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

Social Media: What's the Deal?

8/4/2016

Facebook Logo

Twitter Logo

Instagram Logo

Social media outreach is a very important practice for the Museum, for a huge number of reasons. We use Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. One of the main reasons we use social media is to keep you – our visitors – informed of daily happenings, events, and new discoveries within the Museum. It also allows us to connect with other museums to stay on top of the technology and techniques of the trade so we can present our collection in the best way we can.

We also use social media in a way that helps us make discoveries about our collection. For example, just a couple weeks ago you helped us make a connection within an unmarked photo (link to original FB post) that led us to the discovery of the event it depicted: the 1957 opening of the new government wharf in Gibsons Landing. We also discovered accompanying photos from various perspectives through your help. This type of thing happens a lot. When we have a question, or interesting photo, we ask you for help. Just so you can see the progression, here is the initial post, the middle post where you helped us with your knowledge, and the post where we were able to tell you with certainty what conclusion we came to. Another exciting post was this class picture we posted on this year’s Elphinstone Secondary graduation day.

The most popular of the social media platforms we use is Facebook. Facebook is very popular with our typical audience, who are usually around 45 to 65 years old. Interestingly, a number of those who regularly interact with us on Facebook also regularly come into the Museum to visit and walk through the exhibits. It is nice to have such a solid contact with this audience because they are our link to the past. Visitors such as local historian Dale Peterson help us with connections, events, and other happenings that may not necessarily be included in our collection. As a Summer Student from out of town, and also for the Museum, this connection is imperative because it helps us learn and document things about the community that otherwise may have been forgotten.

Fig. 1: The Facebook post where we asked for your help figuring out what was going on in this photo.

Fig. 2: Another popular post, this time a class photo that sparked a 60 year class reunion.

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.

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!

Fig. 3: A popular Instagram post featuring the contents of our Seaman's Chest in the Maritime Exhibit.

So, if you enjoy it, please keep interacting with us on social media! We love to hear back from you about your opinions, contributions, and memories. Keep up with us on our pages on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!

The Process of Digitization

7/27/2016

This week an integral member of the museum came back to work – Garry Morrison, our Image Technician. After two months away on leave he is back and ready to get to work! Gary has been our Image Technician for 16 years, and has digitized all of our collection up to date. Prior to working with us he was a professional photographer that worked on everything from events to celebrity photography. His favourite celebrity to work with was Tina Turner.

With Garry back came the perfect opportunity for me to learn about an integral process to the Museum: digitization. Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital format. At the Museum we digitize our photos, newspapers, artifacts, and archives to make database entries easier to navigate. When database entries have a digital reproduction (i.e. an accompanying photograph) it is much easier to confirm we have found what we are looking for – see this blog post for an example!

We have also used digitization to make our collection more accessible to you! Our Photo Collection and Newspaper Collection have been made available online, and both are great examples of digitization. We received a grant from UBC to digitize our newspaper archives and they also host both the Coast News and the Peninsula Times on their website. This was done in two phases: Phase One handled newspapers dated approximately 1940-1980, and Phase Two covered 1980 onward.

What are the common ways to digitize physical items? We use two different methods here at the Museum, but there are definitely countless more technologically advanced ways to digitize items. As we are just a small Museum, we stick to the simplest ways of making our information accessible.

The first way is to scan the items. This can be done using a printer/scanner or a simple scanner. The model we use is the EPSON Perfection V700/V750 Photo. It was state of the art when we bought it, and honestly it still works great. The scanner allows us to digitize a high volume of objects in a fairly short amount of time. Letters, photos, and magazines make up the bulk of the items we digitize using the scanner. Usually we only scan the front page, but if there is something of interest on the back (i.e. informational text) we will also make sure to scan the back. For multiple-page documents we will scan the first and third page. Scanning is a valuable way of digitizing items because it is fast-paced and straight-forward.

Fig. 1: In cases where we have more than one of the same item and both sides need to be scanned, we can cheat the system a bit.

In the case of our Newspaper Collection, the scanning process was a little different. We did not scan each and every page of each and every newspaper we have; that process would create unnecessary mechanical wear on the newspapers, as well as introduce the papers to harmful light pollution. Instead, we used microfilms. Microfilms are a type of open reel or cassette ‘negative’ where high volumes of content can be stored in a very small space. By using the microfilm instead of the archival document we were able to make high-quality, high-resolution scans of newspapers without any risk!

The problem comes when we have to digitize an item that cannot fit in the scanner! Can you imagine trying to scan one of the six farming sickles we have in our collection?

Instead of scanning items like this, we photograph them. A three-sided box is made of white, lightweight material (examples below) and the item is placed inside. The camera – a higher quality camera that will produce good, high resolution photos - is placed directly over-top the object, and the flash is angled towards the back wall. This way when the camera flashes it will bounce off the sides of the homemade box and onto the object, effectively preventing any shadows. After the photos have been taken they are uploaded to the computer and manually inputted to the database.

Fig. 2: A homemade lightbox used to photograph artifacts or products for sale. Note the placement of the camera and lights.

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

How are Exhibits Created?

7/20/2016

Exhibits are the main point of a Museum – they showcase the collection, tell a story, and educate about the history of the area. In our Museum we focus on the area inside the geographical boundaries of “…McNab Creek to the North, Howe Sound to the East, the Strait of Georgia to the South, and Jervis Inlet to the West”, as well as showcasing pieces that are tied closely to the history of the community that may not necessarily fall within that geographical boundary.

The main floor features Squamish stone tools, dating back 10,000 years, a Fishing and a Marine Transportation exhibit that includes the Union Steamships. Soon, in our feature exhibit space, we will have a Coast Salish weaving exhibit – Syets-chet lhen-tumulh txwchelhk̲w-anam/Our Stories Woven through Time – which is co-curated with the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre. Upstairs boasts exhibits about agriculture and logging, pioneer families (Gibsons, Inglis, Woodsworth, and Finnish immigrants), Beachcombers, and technology exhibits that have special emphasis on happenings within Gibsons.

But what goes into the making of these exhibits? What sort of artifacts need to be included, how should they be included, and to what extent should they be explained? How do we ensure that the exhibit is going to tell the story that we need it to tell? To answer these questions I am going to use three examples of exhibits that I put together: the Union Steamship exhibit downstairs, and the school and office exhibits upstairs. While the physical assembly process was similar in each exhibit, the stories they are presenting is very different.

The Union Steamship exhibit focuses on the ferries of the coast, specifically the Union Steamship company that ran up and down the BC coast between 1889 and 1959. The steamships essentially functioned as ferries: carting people and objects (such as cars) from the mainland to the Coast, but not making as many trips as the BC Ferries does. While BC Ferries make multiple sailings a day, the Union Steamships would make their rounds to the Sunshine Coast every three days or so. More information on this can be found in our Marine Transportation section of the website.

To represent this story we have a limited selection of artifacts – a series of Union Steamship plates, mugs and cutlery, a life vest, a round life preserver, and various pictures. These artifacts need to be arranged to complement the text that accompanies them, giving us a hint as to what life would have been like on these ships. With that in mind, is what we came up with:

Fig. 1: The completed Union Steamship exhibit.

Fig. 2: Union Steamship Bowling Shirt belonging to Miss Virginia Puchalski.

Fig. 3: Union Steamship dishware.

The school exhibit lives on the second floor. It simulates a small classroom, with planked flooring, a small desk, and schoolbooks all around. A large school sign and several small toys are also part of this exhibit. While assembling this exhibit it was important to emphasize that these artifacts came from a place of learning, but also that these objects were primarily used by children. For me, it meant the space should be serious but whimsical – if you look closely you will see storybooks interspersed with the textbooks in the bookcase behind the desk, and toys and musical instruments on top of the shelves. Here is the finished product, with a couple close-ups:

Fig. 4: Completed Schoolhouse exhibit.

Fig. 5: A number of items commonly used in schoolhouses (i.e. bell, megaphone). Of special interest are the two floorboards from the first schoolhouse in Gibsons.

Fig. 6: A series of schoolbooks placed behind the desk. Titles include: Elementary Algebra, Canada: New World Power, and Psychology for Students of Education.

Finally, the office exhibit. This is modeled after the office of Mr. W. Winn, a prominent businessman of the area. This exhibit features an adding machine, many stamps and embossers, and an impressive amount of receipt books. Mr. Winn was a very busy man – his ledgers are full to the brim with notes about business, and his adding machine tells us that he needed a faster way to do math than longhand addition and subtraction. Mr. Winn’s exhibit features his receipt books alphabetized in cubbies behind his large roll-top desk. The desk itself has more symmetrically placed artifacts, showcasing the items Mr. Winn would have used the most during his business days.

Fig. 8: The completed Mr. Winn office exhibit.

Fig. 9: A sample of receipt books from Mr. Winn. Note the names on each book!

Fig. 10: A number of stamps set up inside the roll-top desk.

What are your opinions on these exhibits? Is there a different way you would have showcased the artifacts, or a different story you would have told? Feel free to let us know in the comments!

Be sure to come down and visit us at the Museum to interpret the exhibits for yourself –we are open Tuesday through Sunday, 10:30am – 4:30pm! We look forward to seeing you soon.

How to Conduct Research: Hubert Evans

7/13/2016

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.

Fig. 1: A table of sources that explains what each source is.

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.

Fig.2: Young Hubert Evans near his boat that is filled with trolling gear.

Fig. 3: Elderly Hubert Evans standing outside his house in Roberts Creek. No date is given.

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.

Fig. 4: A clip of the masterlist I have compiled on Hubert Evans. This clip exemplifies multiple publication dates.

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!

Strange Objects: Do You Know What This Is?

7/5/2016

Fig.1: The unidentified object. Any guesses on what it is?

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.

Fig. 2: The accession number for our object - 96.001.01F

  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.

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.

Fig.3: The database page for accessioned item number 1978.013.40a

The matches I found by using keywords in the database were 1978.013.40a and 1992.025.01. Neither of these entries have pictures in the database, so I cannot be sure that they are really a match to the object I am trying to find, but it is because these entries have no picture that they could be a match.

1978.013.40a is described as a stove pipe, with “…an air vent near the top, flattened at the bottom. Covered in soot”. Does this description match the picture at the top of the post? It’s definitely a possibility, but we could do better.

Fig. 4: The database page for accessioned item number 1992.025.01

The next item is 1992.025.01. This is described as “…a large black adding machine with white plastic keys and a black cord…black non-slip coating … is flaking off to reveal smooth black-painted metal”. This could be our item. It is black like ours, and the paint is flaking like ours, but ours doesn’t have any white keys. This is also not our item!

Luckily, our item has an accession number on it! All we have to do is take this number and search for it in our database, and voila!

Even though we have the accession number, this still took a little bit of work as the accession number pictured (fig.2) is one that follows an old format. Fortunately we can still find the same information! It turns out that, with some fiddling, 96.001.01F translates to 1996.001.01. Using the accession number, 1996.001.01, I can do a specific search for our item.

Our item is a “pot belly stove” that was used for heating homes using wood! In hindsight, this makes a lot of sense. We can see now that the small door at the front was for coal, while the tall upper section was for fire and the long joined pieces were to control air-flow. Because this object came with only a description, and no history attached (we don’t know who owned it, where it came from, or if it is even relevant to the Coast) it is referred to as an Example of Kind. Being an Example of Kind makes this object relevant to the collection because it was an example of the common technology of the eras we are trying to preserve.

Fig. 5: Our pot-belly stove next to a more popular/modern version

Fig. 6: A more popular rendition of the pot-belly stove next to our accessioned version

See you next week for some more adventures into the collection! Feel free to tell us your initial thoughts on what the object was in the comments below!

Research Requests: How Do They Work?

6/28/2016

Ever wonder how we track down information and/or items to answer research requests? Being new to the Museum, this in one of the first things I needed to learn. Let’s find out by following this picture through the process.

Step 1: Database

            The first step is to look into the database for the artifact, photo, or object that you are interested in. In our database you can do either a broad or specific search using keywords to match the description of the artifact/photo/object. In cases where we are following a research request we would use key words from the request (eg. place, date, event) to narrow our search. In this case the research request we received specified that they wanted information about past musical events, so I used keywords such as ‘orchestra’ and ‘regatta’. This photo, #284, is actually a postcard shot by Helen McCall that depicts a scene from the 1937 West Howe Sound Regatta. It is a surprisingly striking photograph for the technology of the day, and showcases some interesting content, so I was excited to follow this photo through the process of taking it out of the archives.

Step 2: Donor Form

            The Donor Form is an important part of the initial process of acquiring an artifact. Usually when a donation is brought in the donor form is filled out, and includes the relationship of the donor to the object, and the history of the item up until the point of bringing it into the Museum. This is an important step not only for museum administration, but for research purposes. If we know where the donation came from we can better understand its significance to the community!

Unfortunately there is no Donor form for photo #284. With such a low number we can tell that this postcard was a very early acquisition of the museum’s, which means protocols for Donor Forms were not yet established.

Step 3: Looking in the Archives

The next step is probably the most simple, but the most fun. This is where we get to physically go into the archive space and look for our item. Most of the time the photo is in the archives, but sometimes it is on display in an exhibit or is in the oversized archive storage.

Photo #284 was in the archive right where it was supposed to be! Photos are always welcome additions to the archive as they don’t take up much space and can be stored closely together, as seen above.

Step 4: Examining the Photo

Here we can see the photo comes in an acid-free folder, to prevent decaying of the photo, and that both the negative and a print of the postcard have been preserved. When the negative is preserved it is often referred to as the ‘original’, as reproductions (such as the postcard pictured) often look a little different than the negative does.

When handling artifacts as a museum employee it is important to always wear white cotton gloves and not to dawdle. Both the natural oils on your hands and prolonged exposure to light can damage the photo.

Step 5: You’re Done!

After you’re done examining the photo, you simply put the picture and negative (if it has one) back into its acid-free folder and back into the archive from whence it came.

There you have the process that a museum employee would take to pull an artifact, photo, or object from the archives. We do this most often when there are research requests, so please send your inquiries in! From artifacts to photos to newspapers, we have them all. If for some reason you can’t make it into the museum, take a look at our online photo and newspaper collections.

New Summer Student: Drew Beard

6/18/2016

Hi everyone!

My name is Drew Beard (pictured above) and I am the new 2016 Summer Student for the Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives. I am currently a student of the University of Victoria, and I am enrolled in my third year of an English Literature and Medieval Studies double major program. I grew up in the Elk Valley, which is a series of small towns in the mountains of BC – if you’re thinking Fernie or Cranbrook you are in the right area.

Having only visited the Sunshine Coast a couple of times before, and not for very long periods of time, I was excited at the prospect of being able to spend an entire summer in this beautiful place by the ocean. Most of my excitement, however, has been reserved for working within the museum and working with the antique artifacts, photos, and books that are so closely tied to the Coast. My Medieval Studies degree – and the subsequent hours spent in Special Collections poring over manuscripts – introduced me to my love of preserving artifacts and the history they hold. The Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives is a great place for me to learn about the processes archivists take to keep their collections and exhibit spaces up-to-date and accessible to everyone. While it isn’t in Latin or written on animal skin (aka parchment), local histories are just as fun and mysterious as medieval manuscripts!

That being said, this summer position is a great fit for me, and I hope I’ll prove to be a great for for the Museum as well. I will be putting out a blog post every week on varying subjects such as: The Renovation, Cool Things Found in the Archives, Things Learned This Week, How the Museum Works, and Research Stuff. Because this is the first and Introductory Blog Post, I’ll leave you with something Cool I Found in the Archives:

While fulfilling a research request for a picture from the Halfmoon Bay Fall Fair I came across photo 553: an old man and his driving-horse all dressed up for the Gibsons Fall Fair in 1950. The description tells us that this picture depicts “[a] decorated entry in the Fall Fair parade at Gibsons Landing… Ernie Lowe in Ed Turner’s buggy drawn by Al Christenson’s horse”. While there were unfortunately no photos of the Halfmoon Bay Fall Fair, this photo (pictured below) was a nice find.