By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Even though a modern new county archives is nearing completion, Sheila McCoy is wondering why the Town of Cobourg apparently intends to keep its old one – even though it means Cobourg taxpayers will, in effect, be paying for two archives.
McCoy put the question to council at their meeting Wednesday.
Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the Cobourg Public Library was designed to include an archival space on the ground floor. Now Northumberland County is completing its own museum-and-archives facility, so – though McCoy has heard that the town would like to keep its materials from 2013 on in this space – she thinks it would be smarter for the town to allow its archival materials to become part of the county collection.
“The current Northumberland County archival staff members are professionals. They know how to file and, more importantly, how to search and find as well as how to treat valuable and fragile documents,” she said.
Archival users include businesses, community groups and individuals of all kinds. The professionals at the county archives will deal efficiently with these requests, and are paid for by county taxes that are paid by the residents of Cobourg.
If keeping the materials at the library is the plan, McCoy asked, is there a definite plan and a budget in place, not to mention qualified archival staff? If so, what will this cost?
This cost could potentially include a $45,000 rolling index file that is technically county property and may have to be replaced.
“This seems to be a totally unnecessary expense, since the county facility has space and professional staff,” McCoy said.
Looking at it from another angle, she added, vacating the room would increase badly needed available space for library programming and provide badly needed revenues.
Councillor Miriam Mutton made the motion to refer McCoy’s presentation to staff for a report back.
Councillor Adam Bureau noted that library Chief Administrative Officer Tammy Robinson had made a presentation some months ago on this topic, at which time it was referred to the Memorandum of Understanding between the town and the library.
“I agree the library always needs more room for sure but, for me, I would rather receive the presentation for information,” Bureau said.
“The budget implications are now known to me. Ms. McCoy raises a number of questions about staffing, training, access I don’t have an answer for. I was hoping we could get some clarity in a report back,” Mutton replied.
“I would say a report back is premature,” Mayor Lucas Cleveland agreed, calling the idea “inappropriate, even unprofessional.”
Municipal Clerk Brent Larmer noted that the archival space that would otherwise be vacated is a purpose-built archives area which, if retained, would allow the town to control its own records.
“All clerks across the municipalities of Ontario are professionals in retention and archival records. We do a really good job of that,” Larmer added.
“I think a report actually would be informative as well, because there’s a lot of history here.”
For example, prior to the library’s construction, the archives were handled by the Cobourg and District Historical Society.
“We are now at the capacity to control our own records,” he stated.
Commending Larmer’s passion for this issue, Cleveland said, “I would trust Mr. Larmer with our records almost more than anyone else in the world.”
Nevertheless, council did pass the motion made by Mutton, and a staff report can be expected.
