HI! This is very disturbing. Is it possible to contact the local City Councillor about this and see what can be done or perhaps the Ontario Historical Society with some advice? This is very important information. Thanks! Linda. ________________________________ From: A forum for discussion for the Archives Assoc. of Ontario <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Mary Kosta <[log in to unmask]> Sent: March 15, 2024 6:10 PM To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Save Victoria Hospital archives This is deeply discouraging that archivists are not involved in the preservation, arrangement, and description of this archives. Thanks for informing us, and it also points to a broader problem – there is no municipal or county archives serving the London, Ontario area. Mary Grace Kosta London, Ontario From: A forum for discussion for the Archives Assoc. of Ontario <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of Michelle A Hamilton Sent: Friday, March 15, 2024 1:55 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Save Victoria Hospital archives Some people who received this message don't often get email from [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>. Learn why this is important<https://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification> Dear members, I'd like to draw your attention to a petition to save the old Victoria Hospital (London, ON) archives which I have posted on Change.org. https://chng.it/FyPLXg6vHy In the 1990s, there were 3 hospital museums and archives in London and as each closed, they sent material to the then remaining one – the Victoria Hospital Museum and Archives – which also closed after. That hospital has now been mostly demolished and the archival material moved to the 'new' Victoria Hospital (part of the larger London Health Science Centre). For the past 3 years, my MA Public History students and I have been conducting research and oral interviews in partnership with the Vision SoHo Alliance, an affordable housing consortium<https://www.lcf.on.ca/vision-soho-alliance/#jump1a> which purchased a large block of the old hospital grounds. We are curating nine outdoor historical signs, with linked online resources, which will be mounted on the perimeter of its land in 2026. In 2021, I approached the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) to discuss a partnership, including research in the archival material. My requests have been met with denial of the records' existence, a description of the material as unimportant and marked for destruction, and then finally just silence. We have heard that there is a committee assessing the archives to determine what should be kept or destroyed but there is no historian or archivist on this committee. As well, LHSC has approached the archives at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Toronto to take the records but both institutions stated that Western Archives is the right archives. Western archive staff have volunteered to come and pick up the records many times. Over the past 2.5 years, historians and administrators from Western and other universities, archivists, Alliance members, politicians, and physicians and surgeons have tried open a conversation at personal, administrative, and collegial levels about the archives. Nothing has worked. The issue has moved beyond our project. I am concerned about the state and preservation of the archives, as shown by the pictures. I hope you will be equally concerned and sign the petition. If you have any questions about the various attempts to discuss the archives with LHSC, please let me know. I didn't want to make this email onerous. Best, Michelle Hamilton [cid:image001.png@01DA76E2.95AEFA90] ==================================== ==================================== ====================================