(Photo : Cam Hart workshop leader)
A number of years ago when I was still
teaching in the Film and Video Department at the University of
Regina, I asked a student who had been in my 200 level production
class and was, after 4 years of study, about to graduate, what he had
learned. He simply said “I learned to focus.”
Through the years the word “focus”
has stayed with me.
If you asked me what I learned from the
Introduction to Collections Digitization Workshop held recently in
Saskatoon, it would be the need to “focus.” Too often when I attend workshops I think I have to do everything, implement
everything I have heard at that particular workshop. I become
overwhelmed, then I remember the word “focus.” I am not alone.
Each of our little museums has a board of directors and we need to
“focus.”
The workshop gives us directions, but
we need to decide where to go, how much we can achieve, and lay out a
plan before we begin. The word POLICY has always put me into a
panic, but suddenly I realized that a policy assists in giving
“focus.”
What does our museum feel is critical
to digitize? Why is it critical? For what purpose are we doing it?
How will we do it? How will we use it in the future? How will
future generations access the information as technology changes?
Will our digitized information be corrupted and be unaccessible?
I began to realize that by asking
questions it would help us “focus” on our needs. The workshop
gave us basic technical information, online resources, software
available, hardware and equipment needs etc, but it is up to each of us to “focus.”
This year marked the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Cupar and District Heritage Museum. Each year the museum hosts a Christmas supper for their members and volunteers. This year 40 people attended. The museum board likes to attach a cultural event to the evening. This year local singer Nikki Wagner entertained us. What I especially enjoyed was not just her beautiful voice, but the stories about the significance that each song had to her musically talented family. Each song had a memory of a period or event in her life, some happy and others quite sad and tragic. These stories were intimate and revealing.
