Congratulations to all the well deserving 2021 AAO award  winners.

*Iona McCraith*
Archives Advisor *|* *Archives Association of Ontario*

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On Mon, 17 May 2021 at 08:50, Rodney Carter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>
> The AAO Awards Committee – consisting of Jean Dryden, Matt Szybalski,
> David Sharron, and Rodney Carter – were pleased and honoured to announce
> the winners of the 2021 AAO Awards at the AAO’s Annual General Meeting held
> on May 14th, 2021.
>
>
> Three Emerging Professional Awards, an Alexander Fraser Award, a James J.
> Talman Award, and one AAO Institutional Award were presented this year.
>
>
> *Amanda Oliver* was presented with the *AAO Emerging Leader Award* in
> 2021 for her impressive professional and scholarly work, her demonstrated
> leadership, and her active participation in the professional archival
> community.
>
>
> The *Emerging Leader Award* was presented to *Joshua Klar* in recognition
> of his work in establishing and managing the Norfolk County Archives, his
> community outreach efforts, and for his active participation in Archives
> Association of Ontario.
>
>
> For her professional and scholarly work, service to archival associations,
> and in recognition of the key role she has played as a mentor to racialized
> colleagues, the AAO presented the *Emerging Leader Award* to *Katrina
> Cohen-Palacios*.
>
>
> For his dedicated service to the archival community in Ontario and his
> tireless efforts in sharing his knowledge and passion for digital
> preservation, *Grant Hurley* was presented with the *Alexander Fraser
> Award*.
>
>
> This year, the *James J. Talman Award* was presented to *Mary Grace Kosta*
> for her work developing the student practicum program at the Archives of
> the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph with which she has
> demonstrated an outstanding level of imagination and innovation in
> supporting new members of the archival profession.
>
>
> In recognition of the extraordinary work of its archivists and volunteers,
> and its continuous improvement over the years, the Archives Association of
> Ontario presented the *Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives* with the *AAO’s
> Institutional Award*.
>
>
> The full citations for the winners can be found below. Please join me in
> congratulating them all.
>
>
>
> Rodney Carter
>
> Chair, AAO Awards Committee
>
>
>
> AAO EMERGING LEADER AWARD
>
> The Emerging Leader Award was created in 2018 to mark the 25th anniversary
> of the Association. The award recognizes early-career archivists (who have
> been in the profession between two and ten years), whose work and service
> demonstrate consistent growth, leadership, and promise to the archives
> profession in Ontario. Achievements may include involvement in professional
> organizations, and/or participation in relevant projects, and/or written
> and scholarly work. This award is intended to recognize cumulative
> contributions rather than any single activity.
>
>
> AAO EMERGING LEADER AWARD – AMANDA OLIVER
>
> The first AAO Emerging Leader Award for 2021 was presented to Amanda
> Oliver.
>
>
> Amanda earned her Masters of Library and Information Science (Archives
> Concentration) from McGill University in 2012 and in 2013 was hired by the
> Western University Archives as a General Archivist for a one-year term. She
> then moved to Alberta, where she served as Lead Archivist for the Archives
> Society of Alberta's Flood Advisory Programme from 2014-2016, before
> returning to Western as an Assistant Archivist, being promoted to Associate
> Archivist in 2018.
>
>
> Despite being a relatively new professional, when Amanda returned to
> Western in 2016 she was entrusted with processing and providing access to
> the Labatt Brewing Company fonds, Western’s largest and arguably most
> significant fonds, and also managing the day to day relationship with the
> donor. Amanda readily embraced the challenge of dealing with the fonds, and
> taking a user-focused approach to provide access to its most important
> contents.
>
>
> The highlight of this work was the launch of a very successful virtual
> exhibit which saw Amanda expertly undertaking all the archival work
> associated with its design, development, and launch while deftly managing
> the political relationships among the three major contributors and the
> external partners involved in the project. She did so with a high level of
> skill, confidence, and patience.
>
>
> In her short career, Amanda has undertaken a significant amount of
> scholarly activity. She has authored or co-authored articles that have been
> published in *Archives and Manuscripts*, *Archival Issues*, the *Journal
> of Contemporary Archival Studies*, and the *Records Management Journal*
> and has presented over a dozen times at conferences including the annual
> conferences of the AAO, the Association of Canadian Archivists, the Society
> of American Archivists, the American Institute for Conservation of Historic
> and Artistic Works, and at the Archives Society of Alberta Biennial
> Conference. While working at Western, Amanda completed a Master of Arts
> (with distinction) of Preventive Conservation from Northumbria University
> in 2020.
>
>
> Additionally, Amanda has been an active member of the archival community,
> serving on the AAO’s Preservation Committee and as a member of the
> Association of Canadian Archivists’ Professional Development Committee, the
> Conference Program Team, volunteers as a mentor in the ACA’s Mentorship
> Program, and she is a member of CARL’s Canadian Web Archiving Coalition.
>
>
> In the words of her nominator, “As her career has progressed Amanda has
> developed into a very effective leader in formal and informal settings,
> internally at Western and in the professional community. She has a quiet,
> calm, positive and practical outlook and carries out her responsibilities
> in a very professional yet very personable fashion, drawing on both her
> formal education and her various experiences to achieve success.”
>
>
> The AAO is pleased to present Amanda Oliver with the AAO Emerging Leader
> Award in 2021 for her impressive professional and scholarly work, her
> demonstrated leadership, and her active participation in the professional
> archival community.
>
>
>
> AAO EMERGING LEADER AWARD – JOSHUA KLAR
>
> The second AAO Emerging Leader Award for 2021 was presented to Joshua Klar.
>
>
> Joshua graduated in 2015 from Western University’s Master of Library and
> Information Science with a concentration in Archives and Records Management
> and began working at the City of Thunder Bay Archives as an Archives
> Assistant before becoming Associate Archivist. In June 2018, he joined the
> Corporation of Norfolk County as the County’s first archivist.  In this
> role, he facilitated the establishment of a municipal archives facility and
> is responsible for the management of its operations.
>
>
> In his first year as the Archivist for Norfolk County, Joshua planned and
> oversaw the renovation of a historic building which previously served as a
> museum into an archival facility, developed policies and procedures,
> identified and facilitated the transfer of several archival collections
> stored throughout the municipality, and created finding aids for these.
> More recently, he has secured major private archival donations including
> that of the local newspaper, the Simcoe Reformer.
>
>
> Joshua works collaboratively with the Norfolk County Records Management
> team and the County Clerk’s office. In addition to managing the archives,
> he is also responsible for managing the staff of the Eva Brook Donly Museum
> and he has developed and manages a volunteer programme at the Archives. In
> November 2020, Norfolk County’s Council approved an Archives Establishment
> by-law officially creating the municipal archives and approving its
> mandate. This milestone was achieved primarily through Josh’s efforts.
>
>
> Joshua has engaged in a great deal of outreach in his short time in
> Norfolk County, being an invited guest speaker to a variety of local
> organizations speaking about the Norfolk County Archives and archival work
> in general and he also developed and hosted a new annual event, the Norfolk
> County Genealogical Symposium. Additionally, he has presented at a number
> of AAO and other professional conferences. Joshua has also been
> instrumental in the revival of the AAO’s Southwestern Ontario Chapter,
> which had been inactive for a number of years, serving as the president
> since November 2020.
>
>
> According to his nominator, “Josh has quickly become a well-respected
> member of the Norfolk County Heritage & Culture team and has earned the
> trust of the community at large. He is generous in sharing his knowledge
> and expertise with others. He is very much a team player … [His]
> professionalism, positive attitude, sense of humour and thoughtful
> intelligence makes him an extraordinary emerging leader in the field of
> archives.”
>
>
> The AAO is pleased to present the Emerging Leader Award to Joshua Klar in
> recognition of his work in establishing and managing the Norfolk County
> Archives, his community outreach efforts, and for his active participation
> in Archives Association of Ontario.
>
>
>
> AAO EMERGING LEADER AWARD – KATRINA COHEN-PALACIOS
>
> The AAO is pleased to announce that the third Emerging Leader Award for
> the year was presented to Katrina Cohen-Palacios.
>
>
> Katrina, a graduate of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information,
> joined York University’s Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collection in
> 2017 as an Adjunct Archivist, becoming the Media Archivist in 2019, and
> promoted to Archivist in 2020. Her work and contributions as an archivist
> at York University is described as exemplary not only in its collaborative
> nature but also for its outreach impact. Katrina has made important
> contributions in the discourse and workflows related to Canadian archives
> and linked data, an emerging area of archival outreach and collaboration.
> She also has played a key role in the Home Made Visible project, a
> collaboration of the Regent Park Film Festival, Charles Street Videos, and
> York University Libraries, which preserves and celebrates the important
> memories captured in home movies created by members of Indigenous, Black,
> and people of colour communities in Canada. This project was awarded the
> Lieutenant Governor’s Ontario Heritage Award for Excellence in Conservation
> in 2020 and was also shortlisted for the Governor General’s History Award
> for Excellence in Community Programming.
>
>
> Katrina has presented at library and archival conferences across Canada
> and has been involved in various national and local professional
> organizations since 2013, serving on numerous committees and leadership
> positions within the Archives Association of Ontario (AAO) and the Toronto
> Area Archivists Group (TAAG), including as Chair of AAO’s Professional
> Development Committee (PDC) since June 2019 and on the 2021 AAO Conference
> Programme Committee. Since 2013, Katrina has served as a mentor in the
> Association of Canadian Archivists’ Mentorship Programme.  Additionally,
> she has served, formally and informally, as a mentor for new professionals
> and for archival students, particularly at UofT’s iSchool. Her nominators
> highlighted the important to the role her mentorship has had. One wrote,
> “Katrina can always be depended on to share her expertise, knowledge, and
> advice as an established archival professional. Above and beyond all this,
> Katrina extends a great deal of care to those new in the profession. It is
> integral that racialized young professionals and students have other
> racialized leaders that can champion them through the early stages of their
> career. Katrina is an ideal example of this vital role model.”
>
>
> For her professional and scholarly work, service to archival associations,
> and in recognition of the key role she has played as a mentor to racialized
> colleagues, the AAO is pleased to present the Emerging Leader Award to
> Katrina Cohen-Palacios.
>
>
>
> ALEXANDER FRASER AWARD – GRANT HURLEY
>
> Named after the first Archivist of Ontario, the Alexander Fraser Award is
> given to individuals who have contributed in a significant way to the
> advancement of the archival community in Ontario. Achievements may range
> from written and visual work to involvement in organizations or
> participation in projects. This award is designated to recognize cumulative
> contributions rather than any single activity. Generally speaking,
> contributions need to go beyond a specific archives or community.
>
>
> The 2021 Alexander Fraser Award was presented to Grant Hurley.
>
>
> Grant completed a Master’s degree in English from the University of
> British Columbia in 2012 and then went on to earn a dual Master’s of
> Archival Studies and Library and Information Science from UBC in 2015.
> After completing his studies, Grant moved to Toronto where he worked for a
> year as a Records Analyst/Archivist for The College of Physicians and
> Surgeons of Ontario before assuming his current role of Digital
> Preservation Librarian for Scholars Portal at the Ontario Council of
> University Libraries/University of Toronto in August of 2016.
>
>
> Since 2015, Grant has, in the words of his nominator, “set an impossibly
> high bar for service to the professional community.” He quickly became an
> integral member of the archival community in Ontario, serving in many roles
> in professional organizations, often concurrently.
>
>
> Grant joined the Board of the Archives Association of Ontario in 2015,
> serving as Director Without Portfolio, while also taking on the role of
> editor of the association’s newsletter *Off the Record*. He served as
> Board Liaison to the Communications and Advocacy Committee and the
> Professional Development Committee and as member of the Student Outreach
> Committee, the Fundraising Committee, and, most recently, the Digital
> Preservation and Access Committee.
>
>
> In addition to his work with the AAO, Grant has been a member of the
> Association of Canadian Archivists Conference Program team in 2019-2020 and
> is chairing the committee for the 2021 conference. He also serves as the
> ACA’s representative to the Canadian General Standards Board Committee on
> Electronic Records and Image Management. Since 2017, Grant has also worked
> on several committees of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.
>
>
> Beyond his extraordinary professional service, Grant’s nominator calls
> special attention to his “multifaceted involvement in increasing
> professional capacity in the field of digital preservation.”
>
>
> Grant has shared his knowledge of digital preservation in multiple forms:
> he has lead numerous workshops; organized and participated in panel
> discussions and webinars; taught courses and guest lectured at the
> University of Toronto as well as lecturing at Lakehead, McGill, and Ryerson
> Universities; and delivered more than a dozen presentations and posters at
> conferences across Canada as well as in the US, Norway, New Zealand,
> Scotland, Mexico, and the Netherlands. Since 2011, Grant has published
> exceptional scholarly work, authoring four articles, one of which won
> Archivaria’s Gordon Dodds Prize for 2016; three book chapters, and he has
> co-authored five reports on digital preservation. As his nominator writes,
> “It may be near impossible to count the number of individuals whose
> knowledge of digital preservation has directly or indirectly benefited
> thanks to [Grant’s] engagement with the community.”
>
>
> For his dedicated service to the archival community in Ontario and his
> tireless efforts in sharing his knowledge and passion for digital
> preservation, the Archives Association of Ontario is pleased to present
> Grant Hurley with the Alexander Fraser Award.
>
>
>
> JAMES J. TALMAN AWARD – MARY GRACE KOSTA
>
> The James J. Talman Award was named after the second Archivist of Ontario,
> who served from 1935 to 1939. He subsequently served as Chief Librarian for
> the University of Western Ontario until 1969. The Award is given to
> individuals who have demonstrated an outstanding level of imagination and
> innovation in contributing to the profession, their institution, or the
> archival community, or who have challenged conventional thinking about
> archival work.
>
>
> This year, the Talman Award was presented to Mary Grace Kosta for her work
> developing the student practicum program at the Archives of the
> Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph and with which she has
> demonstrated an outstanding level of imagination and innovation in
> supporting new members of the archival profession.
>
>
> Mary started the student practicum program in 2012, shortly after she was
> hired as the first professionally trained lay Congregational Archivist.
> Initially, it was a standard volunteer program but, over time, Mary sensed
> there was the potential to help address an unmet need in the London
> community, particularly from Western University, for opportunities for
> students interested in working in archives to gain practical experience.
>
>
> With the Sisters’ approval, Mary expanded and formalized the volunteer
> program. Through her perseverance, vision, leadership, and creative use of
> limited resources she transformed it into a structured student practicum
> program, with a standard syllabus presented each term. Today the
> Congregation’s student practicum program provides archival studies students
> - mostly from Western’s Faculty of Information and Media Studies but others
> have come from Western’s Public History Program and Mohawk College’s
> Library Technician Program -  with basic training and practical experience
> with core archival functions including preservation, arrangement and
> description, as well as digitization and digital preservation. Students may
> also have an opportunity to assist with reference questions or exhibit
> preparation and, additionally, Mary established a medical artefacts
> cataloguing option within the practicum where students learn basic museum
> registration skills.
>
>
> The practicum program now has a formal application, interview and hiring
> process, followed by structured orientation and training supported by an
> orientation manual and a detailed processing manual which she has made
> publically available on the archives’ website so other institutions can
> benefit from them. The student practicum program runs for a full four-month
> academic term with students normally committing three hours per week for a
> total of approximately 40 hours per term. While many students only
> participate for one term, others return for a second term to gain more
> experience.
>
>
> Since its inception, over 100 students have benefitted from participating
> in the practicum program and from working with Mary to obtain the kind of
> experience that can often make the difference when applying for jobs after
> graduation. Many program “graduates” have gone on to work in the field in
> Ontario and beyond.
>
> In the words of her nominator, “from its rudimentary beginnings […] the
> Congregational Archives student practicum has evolved to become today’s
> formal, well-structured, and very successful program that provides students
> with the opportunity to obtain that all-important first practical work
> experience. It has helped many students gain professional employment and it
> serves as a model for other institutions. The development and success of
> the program are the direct result of Mary Kosta’s sense of an unmet need,
> vision of what could be accomplished, and determination to make it a
> reality.”
>
>
> In recognition of her work and the outstanding level of imagination and
> innovation involved in supporting new members of the archival profession
> through the student practicum program at the Archives of the Congregation
> of the Sisters of St. Joseph the AAO is pleased to present Mary Grace Kosta
> with the James J. Talman Award.
>
>
>
>
> AAO INSTITUTIONAL AWARD – ARNPRIOR & MCNAB/BRAESIDE ARCHIVES
>
> The AAO Institutional Award is given to an archival institution that has
> contributed significantly to the advancement of the archival field or
> community, or has demonstrated a significant level of innovation and
> imagination in the establishment of outstanding or model programs or
> services. Recognition may be granted for an individual project of
> particular merit or for a program that integrates many facets of archival
> enterprise.
>
>
> The AAO is pleased announce the 2021 Institutional Award was presented to
> the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives.
>
>
> The history of Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives (AMBA) goes back to
> 1986, when a joint coordinating committee between the Arnprior and District
> Museum and the Arnprior and District Historical Society was formed with the
> purpose of establishing a community archives. It was formally incorporated
> as an independent, non-profit corporation in 1991 as the Arnprior and
> District Archives with a Board of Management consisting of representation
> from the three municipalities, the local museum, the Women’s Institute, and
> members of the community. In 1993, the archives - an independent, volunteer
> organization dedicated to preserving and making accessible historically
> significant records of the community - opened within the local library. The
> name changed to Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives in 2007.
>
>
> The advice of the Archives of Ontario's Archives Advisor and Preservation
> Consultant were sought in the early stages of its operation, enshrining
> proper archival practices into the organization from its inception. The
> level of professionalism in AMBA’s operations is particularly noteworthy as
> it has always operated with a single, part-time archivist who is
> responsible for all volunteer training and supervision, research and
> reproduction services, processing, description, preservation, social media
> engagement and promotional activities.
>
>
> The Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives receives operation funding from the
> two municipal councils each year and the support of the respective councils
> of McNab/Braeside and Arnprior has grown dramatically over the years.
> However, AMBA has also been reliant on, and very successful in being
> awarded, grants to achieve its goals.
>
>
> By strategically applying for available funds from provincial and federal
> sources, the Archives has been able to expand its archival storage; develop
> its website and upgrade it in stages, increasing its functionality and
> usability over time; create an electronic database of its archival holdings
> and then, later, host this database online and, again later, integrate
> digitized archival objects; digitize historic local newspapers; develop
> virtual exhibitions; and hire students to process archival collections.
>
>
> Through the efforts of AMBA’s dedicated volunteers – who provide around
> 3000 hours of service to the Archives annually – AMBA has been able to
> describe and make accessible its nearly 400 fonds, including thousands of
> photographs and over 500 maps; index birth, marriage, and death records;
> digitize local newspapers and Women’s Institute records; and index over a
> century’s worth of Renfrew County Land Records.
>
>
> As one of the nominator wrote, AMBA is “an excellent example of what can
> be achieved by a small archives with limited funding” and, as another
> nominator stated, “the accomplishments of this volunteer organization over
> its 28 year history are truly outstanding.”
>
>
> In recognition of the extraordinary work of its archivists and volunteers
> and its continuous improvement over the years, the Archives Association of
> Ontario is pleased to present the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives with
> the Institutional Award.
> ====================================

====================================