International Council of Archives

Last month ICA launched a call for candidatures to select a French-speaking young professional to complete the 2012 congress Flying Reporters team. We received a number of excellent applications and finally appointed Nancy Gadoury, from Canada. Nancy is excited about participating for the first time at an ICA international congress. Whether you are attending the congress or not, Nancy will help to inform you about the latest developments.

See the Flying Reporters'blog

Memory of organization to memory of a country

When we work in a public agency, our priority is to establish a management system for administrative archives that will respond to the information needs of our organization and the requirements of the laws of our country in regard to the management and preservation of archives.
Indeed, our purpose as Archivist is much larger. I think that, once processed and offered in free access, archives are a pillar of the sense of belonging of the employees of the organization. My ultimate goal is that archives become an important element of the organizational culture and eventually a guardian of its memory. Much more, I hope that it will be consulted by the population of the region so that they will know that health care services were created for them.
My organization, the Health and social services center of North of Lanaudiere, was established in 2002, but the buildings and services exist since the 19th century. In Canada, it is the religious orders that created most of the health care and socials services, since the beginning of colonisation. Lanaudiere is no exception.
Each of these archives in my organization traces a small part of the history of these religious orders, the health care that they had offered to settlers until today. Even if the majority of these institutions have become public agencies now, they perpetuate the same values.
In my view, the identity of a country is made this way. Small groups build and, accumulate documents and when time brings them together, the archives become the guardians of the memory of a country.

Nancy Gadoury