2734 MURRAY ST. ot
- PORT MOODY, B.C. V3H 1X2 TEL. 939-1648

‘ SERVING COQUITLAM, PORT COQUITLAM, PORT MOODY, BELCARRA and I0CO

February 8, 1984

Mayor and Council . an a rane
City of Port Coquitlam .; _ ,
2272 McAllister Avenue =

Port cot ttam, B.C. FEB 13 1984

Gentlemen:

One of the objectives of the Heritage Society is to preserve

the history of the region encompassed by School. District 43. One

way we believe we can do this is by estabiishing an archives.in

which to store municipal papers, photographs and significant memo-
‘rabilia. .We:have constructed in: the museum a concrete archives vault,

completely enclosed by concrete ensuring safety from fire. We

closely monitor the environment with a psychrometer and dehumidifier,

and the entire building is protected by smoke detectors: and a secur~—

ity system. :

We have spoken with Don Baird, archivist at Simon Fraser Univer-
sity, where the Port Coquitlam archival material is stored. He
agrees with us that it would be desirable to store these records in
. the Station Museum's archives. This would put them in the region. from
“which. they came, which archvisits increasingly consider desirable.
This would provide easier access for researchers, and municipal stafi-
would have them closer to hand, should reference to them need to be

made.

While we have the. vault for these documents, we will need to
install shelving to accommodate them. We have looked at compact. stor-~
age systems on trackage, and plan to get an up-to-date estimate of

costs for this. °

We would also need to hire a trained archivist. In time, it would
be desirable to have someone trained in records management to sort
through the records to determine which should be retained.

We believe this would be a valuable service to each of the muni-
cipalities within our region. We also believe it would be valuable
te local corporaticns and businesses to have such a programme avail-
able. Imperial Oil is eager to store the archival material from all
of western Canada with us. This would require a larger building in
time, but we believe this is a good time to make a start with this

project.