Have a collection you want to highlight?  Working on a special project?  Want to share some news with others?  The Association for Manitoba Archives (AMA) would like to hear from you by sharing blog posts.  We are seeking local archives to share a brief blog post that we will host on our website.  The posts need not be long, about 250 to 500 words in length, but should cover an important collection or project that you would like to share.  You can also submit images with your post.  When the AMA receives it, we will add it to our blog along with links to your institution’s website.  We will also distribute it over our networks to increase exposure.  Even though it is hosted on our website, your institution will be acknowledged as the author of the post.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Chris at webmaster@mbarchives.ca.

Have a great day and we hope to hear from you!

Despite restrictions caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Association for Manitoba Archives (AMA) held its first ever virtual Manitoba Day Awards this evening via Zoom.  As last years event was canceled due to the Pandemic, the proceedings honoured both the 2020 and 2021 winners as well as the nominees.

The virtual Manitoba Day Awards Ceremony started with opening remarks from the AMA’s Chair, David Cuthbert.  Brian Hubner then delivered a land acknowledgement on behalf of the AMA.  Cathy Cox, Minister of Sport, Culture and Heritage also welcomed all participants and thanked the AMA via a video recording.

Using a colourful PowerPoint, the AMA celebrated the winners of the 2020 Manitoba Day Awards and then presented the 2021 nominees.  The 2021 winners were then announced.  If present, award recipients gave a brief speech.  The full list of winners can be found here.

Special thanks to all the nominees as well as our hardworking volunteers for organizing this event!

The Association for Manitoba Archives, along with other members of the Manitoba Heritage Summit Group, signed an open letter to Winnipeg Mayor Brian Bowman regarding a spot on the Bay Downtown Advisory Committee.

You can download and read this letter here.

Library and Archives Canada is officially launching the second Listen, Hear Our Voices funding call.

This year, the initiative provides funding of up to $60,000 per project to eligible Indigenous organizations to digitize existing culture and language recordings, and to help them build the skills, knowledge and resources they need to carry out this work in their communities.

For more information, please see the posters below on these topics:

Listen, Hear Our Voices funding call 2020 (English)

Listen, Hear Our Voices funding call 2020 (French)

Listen, Hear Our Voices funding call 2020 (Anishinabe)

Listen, Hear Our Voices funding call 2020 (Inuktitut - Roman Orthography)

Listen, Hear Our Voices funding call 2020 (Inuktitut - Syllabics)

Webinar Dates:
EN: Wednesdays - October 21^st, November 18^th and November 25^th
FR: Thursdays - October 22^nd and November 19^th

The time for all webinars is 1:30-3:30 ET.
E-mail bac.ecoutezentendrenosvoix-listenhearourvoices.lac@canada.ca  to register.

Application due date: December 11^th, 2020
Application form: French /English

News Releases: French / English

For more information, contact:

Delia Chartrand

Archiviste, Écoutez pour entendre nos voix, Direction générale des Archives
Bibliothèque et Archives Canada / Gouvernement du Canada
delia.chartrand@canada.ca / Tél. : 1-613-790-1134

Archivist, Listen, hear our voices, Archives Branch
Library and Archives Canada / Government of Canada
delia.chartrand@canada.ca / Tel: 1-613-790-1134

The Association for Manitoba Archives is excited to announce the launch of the AMA’s pages on Facebook and Twitter.   

Please consider following the accounts below on your preferred platform:

https://www.facebook.com/mbarchives/

https://twitter.com/ForArchives

To celebrate Manitoba 150, the Association for Manitoba Archives would like to announce 11 different projects and initiatives worthy of praise. Each year the AMA presents the Manitoba Day Awards to individuals who, through the use of archives, complete original works of excellence which contribute to the understanding and celebration of Manitoba’s history. Typically, the winners are announced at our annual awards night, but this year the event and the announcement of winners has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The event will be rescheduled once it is safe to gather and celebrate these achievements. Until then, the AMA still wishes to announce and celebrate all those nominated. The full list of nominees worthy of praise for their work utilizing and promoting different archival materials in Manitoba is available here to explore online from the comfort of home. 

Information about the date of the 2020 Manitoba Day Awards will be announced as soon as we are able to safely hold the event. Please visit the AMA home page for the latest updates.

The Association for Manitoba Archives is pleased to say that the subject headings utilized in MAIN have been altered to be more inclusive and respectful of Manitoba’s Indigenous people. Consequently, when archivists describe archival content, and researchers search and browse that content by subjects, the descriptions in the system are culturally appropriate and more accurately represent Indigenous communities in Manitoba.

Over a period of six years, the MAIN-LCSH Working Group of the AMA, along with the technical support of Artefactual Systems and the financial support of the AMA, worked diligently to realize this goal. By undertaking a consultation process with Indigenous communities in Manitoba, as well as with librarians and archivists around the world, the subject terminology now employed in MAIN is not only more appropriate for describing archival records by or about Manitoba’s Indigenous people, but the descriptions remain highly discoverable and consistent with metadata standards and best practices.

As this work was influenced by others working in this realm, we too encourage reuse of our work in other libraries and archives. The list of terms that were added, changed, or deleted is available here: https://doi.org/10.5203/ss_ama.main_bon.chr.2015.1.

It is our hope that other institutions will be able to build on what we have done and implement culturally appropriate Indigenous subject headings in catalogues and repositories around the world.

The AMA is committed to ensuring that this resource continues to adapt to cultural and societal shifts that necessitate changes in subject headings.

Read more about the project in the article below:

Bone, Christine, and Brett Lougheed. "Library of Congress Subject Headings Related to Indigenous Peoples: Changing LCSH for Use in a Canadian Archival Context." Cataloging & Classification Quarterly 56 (1) (2018). DOI: 10.1080/01639374.2017.1382641.

Dear Members

It has been a busy year for the AMA with two significant advocacy campaigns underway.  Since the beginning of my term in 2016, the Board has been discussing the current structure of the AMA, our mandate, and our services.  We have long known that the changes brought on by the closure of the NADP funding programming and the loss of our Archival Advisor was having a significant impact on our ability to deliver services to our community.  In the hope that we can evolve to meet changing needs along with changing resources, we have embarked upon a strategic planning project.  We anticipate this will be a multi-phased project over two years.  The first step was to engage the services of a consultant to facilitate this process.  We have started work with Margerit Roger of Eupraxia Training, beginning with introspective discussions as a Board on our challenges and opportunities. 

Realizing that our limited resources and entirely volunteer-driven association necessitates clear focus, we are rolling out a short member survey to help us determine our direction over the next 3-5 years.  Completing this survey should take no more than 5 to 10 minutes of your time you can find the link to the survey below.  We will  be gathering the results of this survey over the fall and hope to conduct some interviews with individual members, and former members over the winter months.  Once the results have been compiled and analyzed we will move forward with the development of our strategic plan. We very much look forward to sharing the results with our members.

 

We do very much hope that you will take the time to participate in this survey as  it is crucial in assisting us moving forward.  Your thoughts and opinions are important to us as - our members are who the AMA exists for.  

 

 Watch for the announcement of our upcoming AGM shortly.  We hope to see you there.  Thank you again for taking the time to assist us in this important project. 

Here is the link to our short survey.  

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/AMASurvey2018  

Thank you for all of your support. 

With respect,

Heather Bidzinski

Chair, Association for Manitoba Archives

Applications for National Heritage Digitization Strategy funding are closing soon.  If you have a digitization project ready to go, but no funds to do so, check out the information on the NHDS website!

National Heritage Digitization Strategy

Nominations for the 2018 Manitoba Day Awards are now open! The nomination form and more information about the awards can be found here. Nominations should be submitted by April 15, 2018.