Immersion behind the scenes of the municipal archives

Between digital documents. For example, paper files, the city of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu holds nearly 200,000 archives produced by or for the city. Therefore, French Canada had the opportunity to visit the underground maze of the town hall where most of these documents. Therefore, are kept.

Under the Johannai town hall hides the section of the municipal archives. Moreover, These places collect the administrative history of the municipality with some 10,000 archive boxes, including nearly 80,000 paper files.

If the building dates from 1956 (and from 1975 for the annex which was added to the rear). Similarly, the foundation of the municipal archives dates back to the 1970s, well before the merger of the cities during which a huge documentary work was carried out on the basis of the archives of each municipality which today composes Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu.

With the arrival of new technologies. Consequently, archiving immersion behind scenes municipal archives itself has evolved and the city now has 100,000 digital documents in addition to its many physical archives. Nevertheless, Régied by the city clerk. Therefore, the municipal archives are also managed by several archivists who are responsible for listing them, but also to sort them annually.

Conservation – Immersion behind scenes municipal archives

The city of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu does not have total freedom on the documents it wishes to keep. However, since the Archives Act obliges him to have a conservation calendar.

“With our document management software, we are carrying out annual research and producing a destruction list. However, After that. Consequently, we have it approved by each service director [que chaque document] concerns, “explains Annie Charron, coordinator for archive management. It specifies that the destruction of certain documents requires the intervention of an external specialized firm.

Any document produced in a city comes with legal, administrative or financial value. Before the digital time. the safeguard of immersion behind scenes municipal archives the archives was established according to the available space to save the new years of production of documents.

« [Aujourd’hui]a document will have a permanent conservation according to its testimony value for the history. memory of the city, ”says^me Wheelwright. The trials of public sessions will be permanently kept while an invoice may be destroyed more easily. Each municipal service must also produce an annual payment of its documents in the archives.

To best conduct conservation, archivists are particularly attentive to light, room temperature and humidity. The archives will also be handled with gloves. The most sensitive. highest value documents are kept at the Town Hall, while the rest is distributed in several confidential buildings.

A fire protection system, which operates on gas, also protects the municipal archives stored at the Town Hall. Its proper functioning is checked twice a year.

Archives of interest

The oldest archive held by the immersion behind scenes municipal archives city of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, a report, dates from 1807. In general, the kept archives date back to the middle of 19^e century. If the daily life of archivists is the responsibility of document management rather than history. several archives tell the evolution – sometimes absurd – of the municipality.

Thus, an aid book for the unemployed relates a bygone era. In full post -Second World War recession. the city lent money to its citizens so that they can buy food or wood to heat. Some photos also testify to the visit. in 1954, of Cardinal Paul-Émile Léger, Archbishop of Montreal, or that of King George VI.

A register against taximeters tells the discontent of citizens of another era. who wanted to keep the price fixed at 35 under the race. An electoral list of Iberville also reports “trades” such as “bourgeois owner” and other professions as a baker or tailor.

If immersion behind scenes municipal archives all storage places are not open to the visit. any citizen who wishes to consult an archive stored there has the right thanks to the Access to information law. Once the request is made by the citizen. the city then has a response time and may have to move documents for a consultation on site at the Town Hall.

Historical documents

The documents with a historical value for Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu will rather meet at the Haut-Richelieu Museum. at the Fort Saint-Jean museum for the military part.

Mathieu Hébert. director general of the Haut-Richelieu museum, informs us that the establishment holds 25,000 objects in its collection: photographs (including 3000 signed Joseph Laurent Pinsonneault), artefacts or even ceramic pieces, witnesses of 19^e century when Saint-Jean was the capital of ceramics.

Mr. Hébert explains that in 2015. during the renovation works of the Haut-Richelieu museum, the teams found a baton and a bottle within immersion behind scenes municipal archives the walls of the establishment. If their time could not be defined, they represent the most original anecdote in the museum.

In addition. the Haut-Richelieu museum holds the photographic fund of the local newspaper: all the photos of the French Canada Dating from before 2000 and in paper format has been kept there since 2018.