PLEASE EXCUSE CROSS-POSTINGS

Dear Colleagues,
I am posting this on behalf of the members of the ARCHEION Special
Committee whose names are listed below.

Many thanks for your assistance in spreading the word.
Suzanne Dubeau


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ARCHEION IS IN JEOPARDY -- PLEASE HELP

The ARCHEION Special Committee requires your assistance urgently.

At this time, ARCHEION is on life-support thanks to an insecure funding
environment.   To date the ARCHEION Special Committee has not heard
whether our CCA CAIN grant application will be approved for the 2003/04
fiscal year, even though we are now into the fourth month of this fiscal
year.  Effectively this means that ARCHEION has no money.  Our ARCHEION
Coordinator and Data Collection Archivist cannot live on no money.
ARCHEION cannot run in a vacuum.

Given our understanding that neither British Columbia nor Nova Scotia
has received any CCA CAIN funding for this fiscal year, we believe it is
prudent to be pessimistic and assume that ARCHEION's CCA CAIN grant
application will also be denied.   Positive responses to other funding
applications - assuming they are approved - will not be enough at this
time.  For those who are not aware, this year Canadian Heritage
effectively bypassed the involvement of the CCA in the adjudication of
these grants, and is giving the highest priority to the digitization of
pretty documents rather than the digitization of archival finding aids.

We need your support.  Many hours of volunteer effort and scarce
resources are at risk.

If you - and your institution - care about ARCHEION, please act now.  If
you are able, please consider making a monetary donation to the AAO in
return for a tax receipt.  For example, if every individual AAO member
could donate $100, that would allow ARCHEION to provide several more
weeks of service as we continue to look for other funding sources. Any
little bit would help. Cheques should be made payable to the Archives
Association of Ontario and designated to the ARCHEION project.

In addition, whether you can make a monetary donation or not, please
consider writing to Minister Sheila Copps, and to your local MP to
protest the lack of support for these types of initiatives.  A single
letter from a provincial association is simply not enough.  If you can
do so, enlist the support of your researchers as well.  Write as
individual archivists, and write on behalf of your institutions.  Did
you know that ARCHEION has been averaging over 100,000 hits per month??
We are not including a form letter because we believe that individual
ones are more effective.  Explain from your own context what ARCHEION
does for you, your institution, and your researchers. The relevant
contact information is below.  We would appreciate receiving copies of
any letters you send.

Respectfully yours,

ARCHEION Special Committee members
Marie-Josée Lévesque, Chair
Bob Anger
Suzanne Dubeau
Mary Gladwin
Paul Leatherdale
Alex Thomson

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CONTACT INFORMATION:

Sheila Copps
Minister of Canadian Heritage
Room 511-S
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6

Fax: (819) 994-1267

Contact information for your local MP may be found at:
http://canada.gc.ca/directories/direct_e.html

Remember that if you write to your MP at the House of Commons, no
postage is required.