TCDSB Policy Register   

ARCHIVES A.21

Policy

As part of its comprehensive records management system, the Toronto Catholic District School Board shall maintain archives under the supervision of an archivist responsible to the Senior Manager of Corporate and Office Services. 

Regulations:

1. Definition

a) The archives are the official depository for the written, printed, pictorial, film, tape and other records of the Toronto Catholic District School Board which are deemed to be of enduring administrative and/or historical significance.

b) The Toronto Catholic District School Board archives department has the responsibility of ensuring the collection and preservation of such records.

2. Legal Authorization

a) Authorization for maintaining archival materials is explicit in Subsection 171 (1) (38) of the Education Act, Revised 1990:

"A Board may institute a program of records management that will, subject to the regulations in respect of pupil records,

i) provide for the archival retention by the board or the Archivist of Ontario of school registers, minute books of the board and its predecessors, documents pertaining to boundaries of school sections, separate school zones and secondary districts, original assessment and taxation records in the possession of the board and other records considered by the board to have enduring value or to be of historical interest, and

ii) establish, with the written approval of the auditor of the board, schedules for the retention, disposition and eventual destruction of records of the board, and of the schools under its jurisdiction other than records retained for archival use".

3. Scope

a) Records created by Board employees in the performance of their duties, e.g., official minutes, correspondence and other routine or special records are the property of the Toronto Catholic District School Board. The head of this department, where such records have been created, shall consult with the archivist before disposing of them.

b) Records deemed to be of enduring administrative and/or historical significance which have become inactive shall be transferred to the inactive records area which shall be under the control of the records management officer. The records management officer shall review such records with the archivist and receive the approval of the archivist before retiring such records.

c) Records deemed to be of enduring administrative and/or historical value which are to be retired shall be transferred to the archives.

d) Records not deemed to be of enduring administrative and/or historical value which are no longer of value to the department which created them shall be destroyed. The final decision on whether material falls within the scope of the archives shall rest with the archivist.

e) Publications, microfilms, tape recordings, silent and/or sound films, photographs, video tape recordings and other similar materials reflecting the history and/or the operation of the Toronto Catholic District School Board, and deemed to be of enduring administrative and/or historical significance, shall be retained in the archives.

f) Unofficial records such as the personal papers of current or former senior staff members, trustees, inspectors and others associated with the Board may have a place in the archives. The archivist shall actively solicit the donations of such records. An evaluation of their enduring value can be made prior to their placement in the archives.

g) Donations of other memorabilia (e.g., portraits) of current or former senior staff members, trustees, inspectors and others associated with the Board shall be directed to the archivist.

h) In the case of schools which may be closed due to enrolment decline, any records which do not follow pupils transferred to other schools shall be directed to the archivist.

i) This policy and regulations shall apply throughout the entire Toronto Catholic District School Board including Curriculum Support Units and schools.

4. Role of Toronto Catholic District School Board Archives as a Provincial Repository

a) The Toronto Catholic District School Board, subject to the approval of the Director of Education, shall offer the services of its archives to provincial, municipal Roman Catholic separate school boards and to the other Catholic educational associations in Ontario, such as:

i) The Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association
ii) The Ontario Catholic Supervisory Officers’ Association
iii) The Metro Catholic Elementary School Principals’ Association
iv) The Metro Catholic Secondary School Principals Association
v) The Private Catholic High Schools
vi) Any other Catholic educational association
vii) The Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association
viii)Etc.

b) Only materials deemed to be of historical significance on a province-wide basis shall be accepted from these other boards and associations for inclusion in the Toronto Catholic District School Board archives.

c) All materials accepted from such other boards and associations shall be deemed to be on permanent loan. All such materials shall be held as one collection but shall be identified and listed separately under the name of the contributing board or association. Contributing boards and associations shall have special access to any materials originating from their own offices.

d) The final decision as to what material shall be held for other boards or associations shall rest with the Toronto Catholic District School Board archivist.

5. Access

a) The Toronto Catholic District School Board archives shall make available to qualified researchers such materials in its possession to which access is not restricted. Because the accessibility of material depends on knowledge of its existence, the archivist shall inform researchers of the collections in its custody by means of a public catalogue, inventories and other appropriate finding aids. Staff members shall assist researchers as much as possible, but should not be expected to engage in extended research.  

b) To protect and insure the continued accessibility of the materials in its custody, the Toronto Catholic District School Board archives shall impose the following necessary conditions regarding the use of archival materials:

i) All materials must be used in accordance with the regulations of and under the supervision of the archivist.

ii) Where the archivist must restrict the use of fragile or unusually valuable materials, suitable reproductions shall be made available whenever possible.

iii) Access to unprocessed materials shall be refused.

iv) Normally, the archivist will not allow research materials to be removed from the archives.

Under special circumstances a collection, or a portion of it, may be loaned to or placed on deposit with another institution.

v) The archivist may refuse access to an individual who, in his/her opinion, has demonstrated such carelessness or deliberate destructiveness as to endanger the safety of the material, or who has refused to comply with the regulations of the archives.

vi) As a protection to the collections, the archivist shall require acceptable identification of persons wishing to use the archives, as well as a signature indicating they have read a statement defining the policies and regulations of the archives.

vii) Efforts shall be made to microfilm the majority of the documents in the collection, so that valuable items are not overly handled and so that copies can be easily made for those researchers who require them.

c) The archivist has the obligation of protecting confidentiality within the archives in accordance with the law. Every private donor has the right to impose restrictions of access upon their papers to protect confidentiality for a reasonable period of time:

i) It shall be the responsibility of the archivist to inform researchers of the restrictions which apply to individual collections or record groups.

ii) The archivist shall attempt to discourage donors from imposing unreasonable restrictions and shall encourage a specific time limitation on such restrictions as are imposed.

iii) The archivist shall periodically re-evaluate restricted records and work toward providing free access to material.  

d) Materials held in the archives shall be classified as "Public" or "Private". Each item classified as private shall have access restricted for the time period established for it.

6. Responsibility

a) The archives shall be the responsibility of the Corporate Services Department because:

i) The contents of the archives are historical in nature.

ii) The vast majority of the users of the archives will be academic researchers.

iii) The Board's archives have operated as a part of that department since its inception in 1974.

b) The relationship which exists between archives and records management will require that the archivist and the records management officer work closely together.

c) The maintenance of active files for the Board's executive officials (i.e., the Director and the four Deputy Directors) will reside directly with the records management officer and, therefore, indirectly with the Archivist. Active files will remain so for a period of three years. Inactive files, still the responsibility of the records management officer, will remain so for a period of four years. After seven years all records will become the responsibility of the archivist.

7. Staffing

a) The position of archivist requires professional training, therefore, the Toronto Catholic District School Board shall employ a qualified archivist to manage its archives.

b) The lines of authority for the archivist and the records management officer are shown on the following chart.

Archivist and Records Management Officer

DIRECTOR
COORDINATOR OF CORPORATE SERVICES
SENIOR MANAGER OF CORPORATE AND OFFICE SERVICES
ARCHIVIST
RECORDS MANAGEMENT OFFICER

8. Physical Location

a) The physical location of the archives is the place where the archival material is housed and made available. The natural place is in proximity to corporate records and the library, where reference books, copying facilities, etc., which are required by the staff and the users of the archives, are located.

b) The physical location shall be suitably equipped to allow for the proper protection of the collection. This must include attention to lighting, temperature, humidity, and space as well as suitable storage units.

9. Budget

Funds for the equipping and operating of the archives shall be included in the budget of the Corporate ServicesDepartment.

10. Guidelines Re: Records to be Retained

a) Guidelines indicating the types of records deemed to be of enduring administrative and/or historical significance shall be prepared by the archivist under the direction of the Senior Manager of Corporate andOffice Services.

b) In drafting such guidelines, the archivist shall give special consideration to:

i) The record types that the Ontario Ministry of Culture and Recreation has indicated are of interest to the Archives of Ontario and the regulations of the Ministry of Education.

ii) The historical materials prepared for school openings - A copy of all such materials including copies of audio and video tapes, invitations, programs, newspaper accounts, etc., should be forwarded to the archives for retention in the school history file.

iii) School year and reports, staff pictures and staff lists.

11. Accessioning Procedures

a) For accession by the archives of records created by Board departments.

i) A complete records inventory for each department and Curriculum Support Unit shall be undertaken cooperatively by the archivist, the records management officer, and the department head concerned. All records shall be classified as:

Active
Semi-active
Inactive
Retired (archival or destroyed) 

ii) All active and semi-active records shall remain in the possession of the department concerned or be kept in a central records location. All semi-active records, of which the department has only occasional need, shall be transferred to Inactive Records Storage. All inactive records shall be transferred to Inactive Records Storage for the remainder of their scheduled life, whereupon they shall be either destroyed or transferred to archives.

iii) In order to assure the orderly transfer of records throughout their life cycle, a records retention schedule shall be developed for all Board records jointly by the records management officer and archivist. The records retention schedule for each department shall be implemented only upon receipt of approval of:

The archivist and records management officer
The department head
The Director or appropriate Deputy Director
The Board's auditor and/or lawyer (as necessary)The Ministry of Education (as necessary)  

iv) Once a record schedule has been approved it shall be the responsibility of the archivist and records management officer to ensure that the life cycle is followed. The department head shall become involved when a record series comes up for retirement. The department head shall be notified in case he/she might want to defer retirement. Once the system is in place, a record shall be scheduled at the time of its creation and shall fall into the system in the appropriate slot.

b) For Accession of Board Minutes and Appendices

In dealing with Board Minutes and Appendices, the procedures shall be:

i) The current year's Board Minutes and appendices, and the two years previous to the current year shall be held by the office of the recording secretary.

ii) On or before March 1 of each calendar year, upon return of the immediately past year's minutes from binding, the volumes which then contain the Board Minutes and Appendices for the third year previous to the current year shall be transferred to the Records Management Officer along with any indices to their contents.

iii) All minutes shall be immediately available to the offices of the Director and the recording secretary.  

iv) Accessioning of Board Minutes and Appendices shall be subject to the limitations of budget and space and regulations approved by the

Director of Education.

c) For Accession of Other Items

The detailed procedure for the accession of materials from schools, private donors, etc., will follow Board's Archives Forms Manual.

12. Access Procedures

a) Request for archival information on a routine basis by Supervisory Officers and other staff as designated by the Director of Education shall be processed through the archivist.

b) For the use of the archives by researchers and others.

i) The procedure for the use of the Toronto CatholicDistrict School Board Archives shall be as follows:

Persons wishing to consult the archives shall be required to apply in writing to the Senior Manager of Corporate and Office Services stating the general scope of research to be undertaken, giving as specific a list as possible of the documentation requested. Written permission of the Senior Manager of Corporate and Office Services will be required for access to the archives. 

A user of the archives shall be required to complete and sign an Archives Reader Registration Form indicating agreement to the conditions contained therein.

13. Hours of Operation

a) The archives shall be open on the same basis as the core hours of operation of the Catholic Education Centre, as well as by appointment.

b) The hours of operation shall be made public by means of the Board Newsletter, the Director's Bulletin, etc.

BM p 33, 8 Dec 83.