09 October 2010

Ontario Genealogical Society near disaster

As reported on the OGS blog, on Friday a flood occurred at the OGS provincial office, termed a near disaster. Although there was damage major disaster was averted. Operations at the office for the next couple of weeks will be curtailed while things are straightened out.

Reportedly a worker drilled into a water pipe on the floor above the OGS office and it was 30 minutes before the water could be shut off. Water ran into the storage area, boardroom and part of the office area. Although electronic equipment suffered the OGS website remains operational. There is loss of other materials.

Six boxes holding historical insurance papers suffered water damage, They were removed and frozen prior to conservation which should prevent loss. Hopefully this will prompt OGS to reconsider its decision to store these items in non-archival conditions, and think again about the wisdom of the organization holding archivial documents.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The best service OGS could do for its members would be to sell (or give away) the IOOF documents to a major service like Ancestry.ca. The condition would be that Ancestry would scan and index (or maybe use the OGS index) the documents and put them on their web site.

This would reduce the on-going costs of operating this service, eliminate the need to house the documents, and pass on to Ancestry any liability related to the "privacy issues" that OGS management is so concerned about.

The current financial stress that OGS is facing will likely force a downsizing of the head-office, possibly including reduced office space, leaving no place to house the IOOF documents.

As you say, OGS should probably not be trying to house archival materials, beyond our own business documents.