Galt Staff Win Canadian Museum Association Award
Collections Technician stands with objects in the Galt’s collections.
Photo by Galt Museum & Archives
Lethbridge—The Canadian Museums Association has awarded the Galt Museum & Archives with an Award of Outstanding Achievement for Stewardship of Collections. This prestigious award “recognizes exceptional museum projects in the preservation of intangible culture heritage, including relevant digital practices and documentation.”
When Collections Technician Kevin MacLean joined the staff at the Galt, the standard practice to record information about donated objects and materials was to have the donor submit a written narrative about their object, a commonly accepted best practice in the field.
MacLean’s dedication to the objects in the Galt’s collection led him to develop innovative methods of capturing the “voice” of those objects being safeguarded by the museum.
“Museums collect objects because of the stories those objects can tell, what they were a part of,” explains MacLean. “The best people to give voice to those stories are the donors themselves. By recording the words of the donors in their own voice, we can preserve much more of those stories than we could with a few carefully written and edited paragraphs.”
“We began recording interviews with some donors starting in 2005. The interviews added rich layers of story, information, and context to those particular donations. But it wasn’t our standard process for every donation until 2012. Since then, every single donation that has been accepted into our collection has been accompanied by a recorded interview with the donor.”
“Kevin and his team of staff and volunteers have placed extraordinary emphasis on capturing objects’ intangible stories,” says Curator Dr. Aimee Benoit. “This collection of oral history interviews with donors means that the Galt stewards a collection of objects with any layers of meaning. It also means offers educators, researchers, and visitors with multiple points of rich, personal connection when they access the collections.”
The Canadian Museums Association noted that the process that has been developed by MacLean since 2005 and refined since 2012 in a remarkable undertaking in capturing the oral histories behind their acquisitions.
“[This] approach allows for unique and human stories to be told about each and every item in their collections, giving them new life and personality. The Galt and their wonderful team of staff and volunteers have been implementing this practice for over a decade to help sustain a living memory of their collections and of Lethbridge as a whole.
Through interviews, the museum collaborates with the donors and their families to help shape the way that narrative histories are told. The artifacts’ backgrounds help identify important events in personal histories, whether the item is a wedding dress or a pillowcase! Every requisition and donor has a story and the Galt Museum wants each and every one to be heard.”
Not only are the donors of objects interviewed about the story behind their objects, but those interviews are also then transcribed word for word by a team of trained and dedicated volunteers.
“The contribution of these volunteers to the historical record of Southern Alberta is, frankly, staggering,” raves MacLean. “To date, these amazing volunteers have transcribed over 1.5 million words of oral histories. substantial portions of the transcripts are uploaded as public descriptions on our online database, making the unique and often powerful stories of these objects available to our community and the world.”
MacLean and his team have made oral history the cornerstone of the Galt’s collection practices, and have extended that process to the existing collection of objects taken into the collections prior to 2012. “Oral history interviews have been a resounding success at the Galt Museum & Archives and have added a wealth of rich documentation to the collections,” notes CEO/Executive Director Darrin J Martens “2018 was the busiest year so far for oral histories. Kevin and his team worked very hard and conducted 57 interviews for new acquisitions, totalling 39.6 hours of researchable content that gives colour and depth to our holdings. This invaluable resource is no longer being lost as donors pass away, taking their memories with them. We retain and care for them through this crucial and trailblazing work.”
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This media release can be found at www.galtmuseum.com/news.
Media Contact:
Graham Ruttan (he/him)
Marketing and Communications Officer
Galt Museum & Archives | Fort Whoop-Up
graham.ruttan@galtmuseum.com
403.320.4009