Shelves at the city’s new archives and records centre are being stocked in preparation for the facility’s opening in mid-November.
The downtown centre, located in the former Only Women’s Fitness building at 4725 49th St., brings together the archives department, currently housed at Red Deer Museum + Art Gallery, and the records and information management department, which has been in Cronquist Business Park.
Darren Kuz, information management supervisor, said the new centre provides more efficient and functional space, and the capacity to grow.
The site is close to the downtown Red Deer Public Library branch, City Hall and the museum.
“We’re pretty excited about this new location. We think it’s going to serve us really well,” Kuz said.
He said the records and information department is mostly an internal city department, but the archives regularly receives requests from the public. Reserved public parking will be available for those seeking Red Deer and area information.
“It’s usually family history. We get reference requests from around the world.”
He said requests have included information about people stationed at the Penhold base during the Second World War, and everything in between.
Renovations at the site began in the spring, and the departments hope to be fully moved in by Nov. 16.
“During the move and the pandemic, we’ve still been able to do our reference requests through phone or email. Once we get fully moved in, then we’ll start taking appointments from the public.”
Pandemic protocols will be followed.
Related:
Red Deer archives invites the public to use its new online donation tool
Red Deer archives to launch digital collection
Kuz said people are also using the digital archives collection available online at reddeer.access.preservica.com.
“We’ve spent a lot of time and effort in the past couple of years to get our archive collection online. I know it’s being used more and more.”
He said photos, video, audio and textual records are available in the online collection, and more will be added.
szielinski@reddeeradvocate.com
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