Residential schools archive at Algoma U. in Sault Ste Marie wins Innovation award
Residential schools archive at Algoma U. among those to win Innovation awards
By Michael Purvis - June 26, 2013
Krista McCracken, an archives technician at the Shingwauk Residential Schools Centre at Algoma University, holds up one of the centre's archived photos, in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont. on Thursday, July 19, 2012. More than 24,000 photos and hundreds of thousands of pages of text from Indian residential schools are now available online through the Shingwauk Residental Schools Centre website. MICHAEL PURVIS/SAULT STAR/QMI AGENCY
An online database project that has helped Indian Residential School survivors and their families connect with photos and documents from Canada's troubling past received another award this week.
The Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre named the Shingwauk Residential School Centre project Innovation Project of the Year at its SSMARt Innovation Awards on Monday night.
"It's really the survivors," who are responsible for the project, said Ken Hernden, librarian at Algoma University's Wishart Library, where the archive was developed and where its servers are located. "We're just doing what they asked us to do."
This is the second time this year the archive has been recognized. It received an award last month from the Archives Association of Ontario.
The Shingwauk centre, which also houses physical documents and photos, is a joint effort by Algoma U. and the Children of Shingwauk Alumni Association, which represents survivors from Shingwauk Hall residential school. Over the last two years, the centre's staff have stocked its custom database with roughly five terabytes of data - more than 24,000 photos and hundreds of thousands of pages of documents, mostly from residential schools in Ontario, but also including some records from Alberta, northern Quebec, and the arctic. It is all freely available online, and searchable by name, date, location, school name and keyword.
The online archive is a custom creation, built largely by the systems librarian at Algoma University using the open-source content management system Drupal, and PostgreSQL - open-source database software commonly used by libraries.
Hernden said survivors have used records and photos in the database to prove they went to residential schools and to receive compensation from the government. Relatives have used it to find photos of survivors.
Hernden said one of the other benefits of the archive is that it allows the general public to learn about Canada's history of residential schools and gain insight into why movements like Idle No More exist.
"What we were really hoping for was that the broader community . . . would see that this information is available and is important to the historic fabric of Canadian society," said Hernden.
Hernden said the recognition the project has received this year is gratifying.
"It feels good to be an archivist when you do something like this," he said.
The Innovation Centre handed out a long list of awards on Monday at its 8th annual awards gala.
N-Sci Technologies, an energy industry company that has helped introduce more renewable energy to the city's electricity grid, was named Innovation Company of the Year. N-Sci is credited with making it so that the entire city of Sault Ste. Marie is powered by solar projects at periods of time throughout the year.
Entrepreneur Jeff Elgie was recognized as Innovative Leader of the Year for being a trailblazer in the local and regional creative industry. Elgie, who founded Lucidia diverged from that company last fall to form Digital Intelligence Group Inc., which offers digital consulting services.
Innovative Researcher of the Year went to Paula Antunes, a scientist focused on applied research and development in environmental chemistry and toxicology. She has worked on a number of projects, including landfill leachates, water quality guidelines, environmental remediation and monitoring, and the Remedial Action Plan for the St. Mary's River.
Isabel Molina, a professor in Algoma University's biology department, was recognized as Innovative Educator of the Year for demonstrating creativity and commitment to teaching both fundamental and applied sciences in the classroom. Molina developed a novel laboratory exercise to teach plant physiology and techniques commonly used in plant biotechnology, which was published in Biochemistry and Molecular Education and made available to other instructors.
Miramar Design Studios won the Innovation in Web and Social Media Award, earning kudos for its work with PUC on the city-owned utility company's new website.
Valerie Platsko, a recent graduate of Algoma University's computer science program, won Innovation Graduate of the Year for her volunteer work with the Algoma University Brain-Computer Interface laboratory. Platsko's undergraduate thesis shed new light on issues of interface development called into question conventional thinking about interface development.
Daniel Lance, a Grade 11 student at St. Mary's College who started his own video production company, was named Innovation Youth of the Year.