The People
Archivist: Jodi Aoki, M.A.
Archives Assistant: Christine Walsh, B.A.A.
Curator, Archives, Special Collections, Rare Books and Gifts: Janice Millard, M.L.S., Dip. (CRMP), M.A. (Teaching) - sabbatical leave
University Archivist Emeritus: Bernadine Dodge, M.A., Ed.D.
The Place
Overview...
Trent University Archives is a regional repository for historical papers and records relating to the Trent Valley area and beyond, with special emphasis of those subject areas which complement undergraduate and graduate teaching at Trent. Located on the ground floor of Bata Library, the Archives is open to the Trent community, and the public without charge. Trent University Archives received the A.A.O. Institutional Award of the year in 2003.
A few more facts about Trent University Archives:
- the employment of professional staff
- adherence to professional practices and protocols such as R.A.D.
- participation
in professional archival networking initiatives such as ARCHEION and ARCHIVES
CANADA
- having written policies on acquisition, arrangement, description,
preservation and disaster planning
- maintaining secure and environmentally protected premises for the preservation of our
holdings
- maintaining regular hours for researchers wishing to visit our reading room.
Using Archival Resources
Visitors to our supervised Reading Room must sign a Register upon arrival. Staff are available to discuss research projects, direct researchers to appropriate finding aids, and retrieve documents, special collections or rare books from the closed stacks. Request slips are used to obtain documents, rare books or theses. Special care must be taken when working with unique and irreplaceable archival materials:
All notes are to be taken using pencils, not pens or markers; outlets for lap-top computers are provided.
Coats and backpacks are to be left in the coat rack area.
No food or beverages are allowed in the Reading Room.
Documents must be refolded along original fold lines.
Note-taking paper must not be placed on top of documents and then written on.
Only two boxes of papers will be retrieved at a time.
The existing order and arrangment of file folders in a box, and of papers in each file folder, must be maintained.
Cotton gloves will be provided for handling photographic material and other textual documents as necessary.
Lastly, the Archives Reading Room is a place for quiet academic study using specialized materials. Cell phones must be turned off. If you need to discuss projects or research with another person, a separate place for you to work may be provided so that other patrons are not disturbed.
Reproduction Services
If you are at Trent and working in our Reading Room:
Trent University Archives encourages researchers to come in person to the Archives and to take notes from the materials used. Visitors to the Archives who request photocopying for convenience purposes may have a reasonable amount of copying provided by the staff at the time of the visit. Large amounts, however, will be done as time permits and mailed at a later date to the researcher. Handling and postage costs will be added to photocopying charges. We will not copy entire collections or fonds. All photocopying will be done by Archives staff; self-service machines may not be used for archival materials. All requests for photocopying will be dependent on the condition of the materials and on copyright.
Alternatively, researchers may bring their own digital camera into the reading room to copy archival documents if copyright and the condition of the material to be copied make this feasible.
If you are contacting us by mail or e-mail:
We understand that not all researchers are able to visit us in person. We will provide a reasonable amount of photocopying in response to mail and e-mail requests if the original can be copied without damage and if copyright law does not prohibit such copying. Under no circumstances will we copy entire fonds or collections.
Charges for copying are subject to change and may be subject to surcharge if the original material to be copied requires time-consuming searching or is awkward or complicated to copy.
There are set charges of $8.00 per course for copying and mailing course outlines.
Photocopying |
.10c per page for Trent students/staff; all others .50c per page. For outsized copies (11"x17") the charge in all cases is $1.00 per sheet.
Postage and Handling: $5.00 minimum charge. Thereafter, depending on weight, distance and any special enclosures required such as those for mailing photographs. |
Sound Recording |
Audio cassette to audio cassette: $30.00. |
Digital Imaging |
Digital prints (colour or B&W) 4"x6": $10.00
Digital images supplied on disc or as an e-mail attachment: $10.00
Researchers may use their own cameras to make digital images providing of course that the material can be safely copied, and providing copyright allows copying.
|
Photographic Reproduction |
Services are contracted out to a commercial firm and charges are levied on a case-by-case basis. |
Copyright
All questions of copyright are the responsibility of the researcher. We can, under copyright law, provide one copy of a document for research purposes or private study unless the donor or copyright holder has expressly forbidden such copying. Researchers should be aware that while Trent University owns copyright to many collections in its care, in some cases, copyright resides with the donor or his/her estate. Permission to publish any materials in our holdings or make any use of them beyond private study (for example on a Web site) must be requested in writing. The proper citation for Trent University Archives must be given. Materials copied by us must not be recopied nor deposited in any other archive.
In general terms:
All works, whether published or not, are protected under copyright law for the life of the author/creator plus 50 years. There is a phase-in period as follows: written works by an author who died prior to 1945 are in the public domain; written works by an author who died between 1945 and 1998 are copyrighted until 2048; written works by an author who died after 1998 are copyrighted until 50 years after their death.
Photographs which were already in the public domain as at January 1, 1999 under the old copyright laws remain in the public domain. The old law deemed the owner of copyright in a photograph to be the owner of the first negative or print, not the photographer, and dated copyright protection to be 50 years from the date that the first negative was made. New legislation passed in 1999 was not made retroactive. That is, all photographs produced in 1949 or earlier are in the public domain. Copyright in photographs produced after that date resides with the owner/commissioner of the first negative or print and permission to reproduce photographs must be secured from the owner of the negative/first print.
The current proposal of May 2004 issued by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage argues that the Copyright Act should be amended to give photographers the same authorship rights as other creators. Photographs would be copyright protected for the life of the author (now deemed to be the photographer, not the owner of the first negative or print, nor any person or corporate body who may have commissed the photograph), plus 50 years.
We are required by law to keep a record of every request for photocopying.
There is a form available here which researchers must print, fill in and then mail back to us before any copying can be done. For researchers working in the Archives, the form is provided in the Reading Room.
The situation with respect to copyright is complicated. A synopsis of copyright legislation to date is available but subject to change as new or revised legislation is introduced. In all cases, the researcher is solely responsible for insuring compliance with copyright in the use of archival documents.
