page from the 1881 census

Historians, genealogists, sociologists, and numerous other researchers all use census data generated through the old long census form.  Genealogy is on the rise in Canada and one of the primary resources genealogists rely on is census data.   The public release of Canadian census data collected prior to 1911 has made it easier for anyone to explore their family’s past. Additionally, census data is used to track changes over time, to learn more about factions of society, track migration patterns, and examine various other social history topics.  It is not clear if the new NHS will include all of the topics previously covered by the long census form or if it will  be changing the type of information collected.

In previous years, the long census was distributed to 1 out of 5 families.  The new survey will be sent to 1 of 3 families. However, the survey will be completely voluntary.   The voluntary aspect of the NHS has the potential to impact the validity of the results, as certain segments of the population are traditionally less inclined to respond to surveys.  This has the potential to drastically skew the results.  A lot of government policy relating to community groups and local programming has traditionally been crafted out of the data collected via the long census form.  The use of the voluntary NHS has the potential to impact the creation of policy and impact the funding which community programming receives. The voluntary survey has the potential to handicap the practicality of using census data to shape policy.

According to Statistics Canada, the decision to eliminate the long census form was based on privacy concerns held by the Canadian public.  The increased desire for protection of personal information is nothing new.  However, the data previously collected by the long census form was only released to the public 92 years after it was collected.  This delay in releasing detailed information was enacted as a means of protecting privacy and still allowing the public to benefit from the information collection.

Despite the claims that these changes were enacted in the name of privacy, according to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner the actual number of complaints about the census has dropped in recent years.[1]  Additionally, there have been suggestions that the feedback report Statistics Canada received following the last census made no mention of privacy at all.

Even prior to the exposure of the lack of evidence of privacy complains, the Liberal Party began to urge the Conservatives to recant their decision.  The Liberals have called the census changes a veiled attack against social services and see it as a serious blow to future policy creation.  Overall, the movement to a voluntary survey, with results that may never be made public, is a serious blow to social research, compromises the ability to track long term trends, and has the potential to drastically impact future government policy.

A petition to keep the Canadian census long form can be found here.

Krista McCracken is a public history consultant and is currently working as a Digitization Facilitator for Knowledge Ontario.

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The School Board plans on increasing access to their collection through an educational loan program.  The proposed program aims to expose school children to the artwork and artifacts in an educational setting.  The program would allow school children to both learn and engage with material culture and would see items from the collection being temporarily loaned to Toronto schools.   The School Board has acknowledged the fact that in some cases preservation and security measures will have to be put in place prior to certain items being loaned to schools.  Additional information on the loan program can be found here and here.

This proposed program is great in terms of increasing public access to a private collection and in the unique way it plans to teach children about art, culture, and heritage.  The downside? The proposed program will serve only the schools and children which are part of the Toronto District School Board.   Currently, no additional plans exist to extend the program to visiting school groups, or allow the general public access to the collection.  It is also not currently clear which items from the collection will be part of the loan program.

This example highlights a frequent dilemma in the art and heritage community.  Who decides what portion of a collection should be accessible to the general public? It is not logistically possible for any museum or art gallery to provide constant access to all items in their collection.  Exhibit space is limited in any heritage intuition, making it necessary to be selective in deciding which items are to be displayed to the public at any given time.  Additionally, from a preservation standpoint, placing artifacts on display puts an artifact under stress.  For example, fragile paper documents are very susceptible to light damage, making it impractical for such items to be on display for long periods of time.  Artifacts need to spend time in storage as a means of allowing them to ‘rest’, restoration to take place, and general collection maintenance to occur.

In addition to the quandary of selection, a loan program such as the one proposed by the Toronto District School Board presents another level of logistical problems.  Many museums provide hands on educational programming for children.  However, the materials which children handle in most educational programming are replicas, or deaccessioned items. This allows hands on exploration to take place without any risk of damaging irreplaceable artifacts.  The program suggested by the Toronto District School Board collection is intriguing as it proposes to loan out many original artifacts and art.  Policies and precautions will need to be put in place to protect the valuable nature of the items in the collection. Ideally, the developers of this program will strive to combine the desire to promote interaction with the need to preserve the collection for future generations.

Krista McCracken is a public history consultant and is currently working as a Digitization Facilitator for Knowledge Ontario.

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However, these ethical codes are not all encompassing.  The definition of ‘museum’ has been debated and redefined by heritage professionals and organizations for years.  The difficulty with defining museums is the diversity of collections, mandates, and objectives of heritage institutions. This diversity makes an ethical code which is suited such a wide range of heritage intuitions is nearly impossible to create and even harder to enforce.   Corporate museums and individually owned for profit museums are drastically different from not-for-profit accredited museums.  The diversity in heritage institutions is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something which the general public needs to be aware of when donating to a museum.

Accredited, not-for-profit museums with proper governing policies have established guidelines as to what material they will accept into their collection, they have preservation standards, and responsible deaccesioning policies.  In many unaccredited or privately owned museums these policies are nonexistent.  That being said, there are exceptions out there and is possible to find a privately owned museum with responsible policies.

Why is it important to know about the collection policy of your local museum? Have you ever considered donating material to a museum? Knowing what type of collection policy your local museum has can help you understand what may happen to your donation in years to come.  Recently, the entire Robert Stuart Aeronautical Collection held by a ‘museum’ in Oshawa, ON was put up for sale online.  It is being claimed that most the collection was given to the museum, making it the museum’s property, and that the museum operators have the right to do what they please with the artifacts.  Similar instances of the sale of museum collections for profit can be seen here and here.

Deacessioning is not a bad thing, and it occasionally needs to occur for the sake of preservation and collection development. But, the sale of an entire museum collection on eBay goes beyond deaccessioning and draws into question the matter of public trust.  There are currently no real legal repercussions for intuitions which do not follow accepted public stewardship guidelines.  As such it is imperative that the general public understand the basic museum polices, and the difference between a good accredited museum and a personal collection which has the potential to be sold off at the whim of a collector.  Knowing what type of museum you are donating heritage material to is a key part of ensuring the preservation and longevity of our material culture.

Krista McCracken is a public history consultant and is currently working with Knowledge Ontario as a Digitization Facilitator.

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People naturally forget things over time.  Details become vague, memories cloudy, and events are never recalled exactly as they occurred.  The act of recording history assists in preserving an authentic version of the past.  The way in which the past is remembered and recorded has drastically changed as technology and digital memory have improved.

Technology has created an abundance of new mediums.  Digital information is now cheaper and easier to store than ever before.  The cheapness of digital storage is a huge benefit for those interested in documenting the past.  Digital storage allows heritage institutions to preserve fragile and valuable information at a lower cost, while simultaneously saving space.

However, it has been suggested (here, here, and here) that there are some problems with digital memory.  You probably don’t remember every internet search you have made in the past three months, but Google does.  Digital memory remembers things which humans may have naturally forgotten and is far more comprehensive than human memory. For better or for worse, an offhand comment online has the potential to be remembered indefinitely. The ability of technology to collect information you would never personally remember does have the potential to be historically valuable.  But, digital memory also has the potential to be a reminder of something you would rather forget.

The way in which digital memory is stored is drastically different than the way in which human memory is kept.  Digital memory is often saved in snapshot format.  Photographs, emails, search histories, tweets, etc are often archived separately and are usually saved amongst thousands of similar records. Properly cared for archival records are stored in an organized and methodical way.  Digital memory is often stored by date of creation, broad theme, or in the worst case scenario in no real order.  This difference in organization has the potential to remove digital memory from its proper context.  Born digital items need to be properly organized and sorted in a way which links them to events, people, and other digital records.  Properly created metadata can greatly improve the context of born digital items.  However, a lot of digital information is saved without metadata and without thought toward later use.  This lack of context begs the question, how valuable is information if you cannot piece it together to create a larger picture?  Information is only as valuable as the insight it provides and insight is a lot easier to come by with context.

As Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger argues, technology can “capture the words that have been said, but not the thoughts that were thought.” Technology is a great tool for accessing previously untapped information. However, more traditional forms of collecting history should not be forgotten. Historians and the interpretation of history are still crucial in a world ruled by digital memory.  Recording every action, a la Gordon Bell, can provide a look into the past, but without context this information is not living up to its full potential.

Krista McCracken is a public history consultant and is currently working with Knowledge Ontario as a Digitization Facilitator.