|
|
 |
History of the Archives
The Saskatchewan Archives was established under legislation in 1945 as a joint university-government agency. While The Archives Act was passed in that year, steps to care for public and private archives had begun much earlier. From as early as 1909, the Legislative Library had been collecting and preserving historical documents. In 1938 the University of Saskatchewan and the Government of Saskatchewan officially joined forces to transfer government records to the newly-created Historical Public Records Office located on the university campus. Despite these efforts, there was no systematic or comprehensive approach to records keeping as the government of the day largely determined what records should be preserved and what should be destroyed. Invariably, documents and records were destroyed or lost.
To correct this situation, the newly elected Douglas government set out a public records policy under The Archives Act. It expanded archives activity beyond its primary responsibility for the official records of the Government of Saskatchewan to include acquisitions of documentary material from local government and those private sources "having a bearing on the history of Saskatchewan." Saskatchewan's archival legislation was largely based upon the following principles:
- That it was important to document the lives of ordinary Saskatchewan people as well as those of the political, social, and economic elite;
- That all points of view regardless of affiliation or persuasion must be respected and documented;
- That politics must be removed from the appraisal, selection and access process; and
- That only through regular scheduling, acquisition, preservation and access of the official records could the Government of Saskatchewan and its civil service demonstrate how they had fulfilled the public trust.
Over the past years, this wide-ranging mandate has allowed the Saskatchewan Archives to build up one of the most comprehensive archival collections in Canada.
Click here to see the full text of the Archives Act, 2004.
|
|
