Check out this YouTube presentation for The Hasting and Belleville Community Archives entitled “How To Access The Community Archives When They Are Closed”. Published October 2020, their archivist, Amanda Hill, describes the Archives facility which was established ten years ago. She shows people how to access the collections from a computer.
| The Community Archives of Belleville and Hastings County is a service provided by the County of Hastings and the City of Belleville to help the municipalities of Hastings County preserve and provide access to their documentary heritage. https://www.cabhc.ca/en/about/resources/Transfer-of-municipal-records-to-the-Community-Archives.pdf |
Although the Middlesex Centre Archives do not have the Municipal Records for Middlesex Centre, they do use a similar process. Each donor signs a Deed of Gift for their donation. The number for that donation is recorded on the Deed of Gift and every article within the donation. That is part of the processing work of donations.
When completely processed (number added, repairs completed), the donation is placed in the Archives on a specific shelf in a specific bay of shelving. The donation and its place in the Archives are then recorded. That donation can be found at any time with all its pertinent information. Access is easy and timely. If the donation has privacy implications, it is filed in the restricted files area.
All these policies are already in place at the Middlesex Centre Archives under the direction of Archivist, Carolynn Bart-Riedstra. The processes were designed so that when Middlesex County establishes an archive facility, some of the work is already done and easily transferable.
Written by Carol Small, Chair, The Committee To Establish a Middlesex County Archives