UBC Okanagan students Eamon Riordan-Short (seated) and Alex Neijens are among the team scanning historic documents at the Osoyoos and District Museum and Archives this week. Kara Burton, executive director (right), has selected documents she thinks will be the most interesting for researchers. (Richard McGuire photo)

A treasure trove of documents about local history at the Osoyoos Museum will be preserved digitally, thanks to a project of the University of B.C. Okanagan (UBC).

Students from the university will be at the museum this week scanning documents, says Kara Burton, executive director of the Osoyoos and District Museum and Archives.

Burton’s role has been to select the documents, which she thinks are among those of great interest to researchers.

They have previously been organized into 33 collections, known as fonds, which are aggregations of documents originating from the same source.

“We’ve got original letters from Judge Haynes, we’ve got information from Katie Lacey, who is actually the lady who spearheaded the start of the museum, we’ve got information from the Kruger family, Hester White, who was one of Judge Haynes’ daughters…” says Burton, rhyming off names from Osoyoos’ past.

Currently, these documents are only in paper form, though the museum has digitized 1,400 historic photos, which it scanned previously itself.

The UBC Okanagan project was made possible by a donation by a private B.C.-based foundation, which donated more than $94,000 to help UBC launch the Okanagan Region Historical Digitization Project. UBC is also working with other small Okanagan museums.

The goal is to digitize thousands of photographs and text documents held in museums throughout the Okanagan and make them broadly accessible to the public, according to Paige Hohmann, UBC archivist and special collections librarian.

The digital collections will be available online through UBC early in the fall, the university says.

Burton said the documents are currently properly stored on shelves in archival boxes, but the documents are delicate, with many dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.

And even with the best of care, there is the risk of damage.

“Even with gloves on, it’s not easy to turn pages and flip papers,” said Burton. “So they do get damaged. This will help to minimize that once the digital conversion is done.”

In the past, researchers have often had to contact numerous museums to ask if they have something on a certain topic.

“Now it will be more readily accessible for researchers,” she said. “We hold the copyright and we are owners of the information and will be cited as the reference. In a small way, it will promote the museum as well and puts us on a little bit more of a bigger platform.”

Burton said the UBC online collection will also be able to include the historic photographs that the museum has already scanned, making these available on the Internet as well.

Currently the museum’s website lacks the capability of displaying the digital collection, but Burton said it will link to the UBC site.

While this week’s effort is a big start, Burton said there’s plenty of additional material that can be scanned in the future.

“It’s never ending,” she said. “I often call it my onion. There’s always another layer. This is just taking it to the next level and there will always be more work that can be done.”

She said she’s done her best to prioritize documents that are the most interesting to researchers.

While the university team is in Osoyoos, they will get done as much as they can in the three days.

“It’s the start of a good working relationship between us, so hopefully they’re able to continue their funding, or we can find funding to bring a team down in the future,” said Burton. “It’s something that we would definitely keep working on.”

The university contacted her early this year and Burton said she’s been working with two different departments, this one involving the library and archives and another involving the history department.

“Of course I jumped on any opportunity like this,” said Burton. “Anything that can further the museum and improve what we’ve got and how we offer it, then absolutely, we’re going to take advantage of it.”

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times