Sask. archives closing Saskatoon office, 3 Regina locations

Saskatoon’s provincial archival office is getting set to close on Friday, and most of the documents it holds are being shipped to Regina.

Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan is in the process of consolidating all of their services into one location in the Queen City, and the first step will be closing their only office in Saskatoon.

“One of the primary (reasons) was for the ongoing safety and security of the records,” Provincial Archivist Linda McIntyre told 650 CKOM Wednesday.

She noted the Saskatoon location, along with one of their four locations in Regina, don’t have fire suppression systems — and they don’t want the province’s history going up in smoke.

The plan is to move most of the records from the Saskatoon office and three of the Regina locations to a single office in the Hillsdale neighbourhood, with an ultimate goal to move to a new facility by August 2019.

While cost isn’t a major driver of the shift, Provincial Archives is expected to save $500,000 in rent by 2020-21.

McIntyre said another reason for the move was to align Saskatchewan with how provincial archives are handled across Canada.

“Saskatchewan is the only provincial archive, other than Quebec, that has multiple locations,” she said. “This is to institute a best practice that is in place in the rest of the country.”

She added there are some concerns in Saskatoon about future access to old records like newspapers, family records and photographs for research purposes.

However, she said the archive staff are looking at digitizing more of their files to ensure continued access for universities and family historians.

They’re also looking at leaving some Saskatoon-specific files in the Bridge City.

“We’re in discussions with the City of Saskatoon archives and the University of Saskatchewan archives to have those records remain local,” she said.