The Spruce Grove Archives
The purpose of the Spruce Grove Archives is to collect, document and preserve the oral and written history of the area. Since 2001, volunteers have worked in the Archives Building on the Grounds, making sure each donated memory was recorded carefully and protected. Now documents, photos, newspaper clippings, audio cassettes, maps and CDs provide a recorded history of the people of Spruce Grove and the development of the community. However, the Archive Building is outgrowing its space and changes are needed to maintain and preserve this collection.
With the help of the City of Spruce Grove and the Archives Society of Alberta, a proposal was sent to Library and Archives Canada’s Documentary Heritage Communities Program. We described our concerns and expressed a willingness to work on needed changes. The proposal was accepted and $50,000 in funding, to hire an experienced Archivist to work with us for the next year, was provided. Equipment costs are also covered by this grant. The Community Initiatives Program, a provincial grant, has also provided ‘cost shared’ funding of $21,099 for this project.
An Archivist has since been hired to assess the collection and write policies and procedures that will help future volunteers to manage the collection. Modern storage methods and supplies will be used to preserve the documents far into the future. Digitization of this collection of community history, is our eventual goal. With the help of the City of Spruce Grove, a plan to move the collection to an environmentally safer space has been initiated.
The Archives will be closed until the Spring of 2025 to allow for this reorganization. If you have urgent donations of family history, or research questions, contact us by email at archivescommittee@sprucegroveagsociety.com