The Archives Society of Alberta (ASA), representing 30 institutions from Athabasca University to Wetaskiwin City Archives, has signed a three-year contract with Advanced Cultural Technologies (ACT) to use the easy-to-use and cost effective Cinemage software system to help preserve their archival materials and create an Internet data base for easy management of on-line materials. A similar Cinemage software system was previously chosen by the Archives Association of British Columbia and currently serves its more than 165 member institutions across the Pacific province.

“The benefit of our distributive system,” says ACT President and CEO Edgar Froese, “is affordability and flexibility. ASA will have one master copy of our Cinemage software in Calgary. Their member institutions can load up their materials in Calgary and then add data, delete data, etcetera, from their local offices. They don’t each have to buy their own copy of the software to do that.”

While it is up to each archival institution to determine the level of public access to its material, the Cinemage system can provide the user with everything from easy search capability to access to text, audio and visual components.

Under the contract, ACT has sold ASA a Cinemage System Software package, system installation and configuration, a media server for audio and visual capabilities, and will provide software maintenance and support for three years.

“The B.C. archives people are very happy with our system,” says Mr. Froese, “and we know the Albertans will be too, because its inherent flexibility and easy-to-use features mean that even the remotest archival institution can manipulate its data quickly and use the data base to communicate easily with other member institutions.”

Like its B.C. counterpart, the ASA represents a diverse number of archival holdings, such as five university archives, the city archives of Edmonton and Calgary, the Provincial Archives, and the archives of the elite Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry.