Night at the Museum - Student Showcase
This summer, some of our summer staff took on special projects to present to the public for Night at the Museum! From archival digitization projects to tours of our collections spaces, to discussions of our upcoming Renewal and Digital Museum of Canada exhibit, we loved chatting all things museum with you!
Keep reading to learn more about what our staff has been working on lately!
The Rossland Miner - Tyler
During this year’s “Night at the Museum,” I showcased a variety of notable editions from the Rossland Miner. The Rossland Miner was Rossland’s main newspaper, operating continuously from 1895 to 1972. The early editions of the newspaper were printed inside Ross Thompson’s log cabin, until a suitable office building was acquired. In 1972, after years of financial hardship and a fire that devestated the Rossland Miner building, the newspaper permanently ceased operations. The Rossland Museum & Discovery Centre, however, is fortunate to possess a near-complete collection of the newspaper. As such, the Rossland Miner has been, and continues to be, one of the most important primary sources availabe to research Rossland’s history.
The Rossland Miner was instrumental in my research on Thor Heyerdahl, Jessie McQueen, Ross Thompson, the Rossland Club, the Rossland Light Opera Players, the 1968 Olympic Bid, the Bank of Montreal, Alcohol, Crime, and so much more.
Physical editions of the Rossland Miner are also available to private researchers by appointment. If you wish to access the newspaper, contact: archives@rosslandmuseum.ca.
- Tyler
Archives Assistant Kestra Greer conducting a tour of the archives.
Archives - Behind-the-Scenes - Kestra
A big part of the work I have done over the last year was working to re-organize the archives. Instead of taking the entire archives out into the gallery to show our visitors, for the first time ever, we gave tours of the archives. These tours gave the public a chance to see a part of the museum that they had never had access to before. These tours highlighted some of the areas in the archives I have done a lot of work to, like the museum and school board collections. These are two of the largest collections in the archives and both had been added to often over the years. Re-organizing these collections was necessary to make them more useful for researchers. It was also a good chance to make sure there were no problems like mold or pests in the boxes.
Another highlight of the archives tour was being able to see our photo and newspaper collections. A lot of my time is dedicated to planning out how the museum will digitize our collections. While we are never going to be able to digitize everything in the archives, we do have a list of things that we have decided are important to have digital copies of. Part of my job is determining what we should and shouldn’t digitize. Some pieces are too delicate to be scanned, but others are duplicates of things we already have scanned or are not very relevant to Rossland’s history. I also do research into what methods are best for digitizing archival records so they can be preserved as long as possible. While it’s sometimes hard for me to find specific things to point at as evidence of what I do here at the museum, I was glad to have this chance to show off some of the work I do in the archives.
- Kestra
Map Digitization - Gabe
My presentation for this year's “Night at the Museum” involved my work scanning the binders of mine level maps in the Archives' collection. I brought out the scanner I've been using alongside a laptop to show my process. Additionally, I had three of the binders that I already scanned and a map showing the extent of the mining done in the War Eagle mine to give some context for how far down these tunnels were. During the night, I discussed with guests both my scanning work and the context behind these maps.
- Gabe