The Jewish General Hospital (JGH) Archives

From internal database to the World Wide Web

Presented by Shiri Alon, MLIS, Archivist, JGH ArchivesJune 2, 2010

to the Association of Canadian Jewish Archives and Museums

2

Montreal’s Jewish Community

Hebrew Maternity Hospital staff, 1925

Herzl Dispensary, c. 1912

3

The Jewish General Hospital (JGH)

On September 22, 1929, a mass meeting of more than 3,000 people was held at the Mount Royal Hotel to officially launch a fundraising campaign to build the hospital.

On Oct. 8, 1934, the JGH was officially inaugurated, and a week later, the first patient was admitted.

4

The JGH Archives

The JGH Archives, subsidized by the JGH Health Sciences Library, preserves the institutional memory of the Hospital (early 20th C- present)

Contains 40 linear feet of archival material: textual material photographs artefacts audiovisual

5

Establishing an archive Exhibition of primary sources relating to the founding of

the Hospital and promotion of the history of various JGH departments

Creation of a detailed Finding Aid to describe the JGH fonds which currently includes 31 sous-fonds

Development of database

6

Creation and population of a database

7

Creation and population of a database

8

Using Inmagic

Archives Online Add-on application to existing CS/Textworks Allows for accessions and descriptions Customized and further developed by Andornot,

e.g. French fields Basic thesauri for cataloguing: Getty AAT and

MeSH by NLM Description module is RAD compliant Proprietary softwareSource: Review of archives management software by the Council of Nova Scotia Archives, 2008.

http://www.councilofnsarchives.ca/resources/CNSA%20Software%20Review%202008-Final.pdf

9

Website development

To share resources Promotion of digitization efforts Link to other institutions Make available to historians and researchers Celebrate 75-year history of the Hospital

10

Website development

Keyword search Search by collection, e.g. Photographic or

Brick & Pledge collections Finding aids for three collections with series

descriptions: JGH Health Sciences Library JGH School of Nursing JGH Clinical Ethics Committee

E-resources, e.g. lectures, books, exhibitions.

11

Website development

Working with new Hospital provider/developer

Co-ordination between previous provider/developer on how to use Inmagic as database platform for site

Expressing specific needs of the archive

www.jgh.ca/en/archives

12

Hindsight is 20/20: lessons learned

These things take time…. It’s going to cost how much??!! Sure, we can wait to launch it until next month… or the

next… OK, let’s go over this again, in plainspeak please, I’m an

archivist, not a programmer…

13

Currently working on…

Processing, arranging, cataloguing larger collections

More virtual exhibits, e-resources Creating links and networks Refining and troubleshooting

14

The Jewish General Hospital (JGH) Archives

From internal database to the World Wide Web

Presented by Shiri Alon, MLIS, Archivist, JGH Archives

June 2, 2010

to the Association of Canadian Jewish Archives and Museums

Thank you!