Ontario Archives to York University
The Toronto Star reports that Ontario will be moving its archives to a new building at York University.
The new three-storey facility will be located at York’s main campus on Keele St. and will be built over the next two years. A seven-storey tower atop the archives centre will house university researchers. York will pay for and operate the building.
Under the plan, the province will sign a 35-year lease for $6 million annually with two 10-year options for renewal.
That compares with the $4 million a year the government now pays to rent the substandard building on Grenville St. that has been home to the archives since 1972.
This is good news for anyone who works with Ontario records, some of which go back to 1792 — and will be even better news when the subway goes to York, I suppose. I really like the seven-storey “ivory tower” idea and all.
Ah – déja vu – http://www.slaw.ca/2006/03/14/ontario-archives-at-york/
That is very good news for York and the Archives. I’m going to ask Santa for a subway line to go with that, seeing as we do visit the Archives for work. How will they decide which researchers get to work in the tower?
Surely only déja glimpsed, Simon.
The previous post was about York being on the short list. This post is the announcement they were selected. Surely that is news!
Incidentally, the Archives of Ontario houses over 65,000 transcribed pages of the oral history put together by the Osgoode Society. This is a key resource for anyone doing in-depth research into the history of law in Canada. It is mentioned in today’s Legal Post section of the National Post: Osgoode Offers a Wealth of Canadian Legal History.