LAUNCH DAY REMARKS BY GERRY CLARE, GENERAL EDITOR

• Good evening and welcome to the official launch of our local history web site. I don't often have a captive audience anymore, so I intend to take advantage of the opportunity!
• In just a few minutes Mary and I will cut the ribbon but first I would like to say a few words about the information contained on the site and about its origins.
• The web site on the Internet is just the latest in a series of stages through which the material Dorthea Calverley collected has developed into an ongoing project. I don't know just when she started gathering information about the Peace, but it probably wasn't long after she and her husband, Howard, arrived here in 1936.
• The first time I saw the Calverley Collection, it consisted of books, magazines, tape cassettes, letters and manuscripts piled on almost every flat surface of Mrs Calverley's home. At that time she could see no practical or affordable way to make the information available to the public and yet she felt it was vital that she keep collecting our local history -- and so the collection continued to grow.
• Early in the 1970's -- more than 25 years ago -- the Federal Government made available some Local Initiative Project money. Mrs Calverley began to work with the School District Resource Centre to impose some order on the material that she had collected. Other key people in that project were Dorothy Fast, Resource Centre Co-ordinator at that time and Joanne Dahlen who did a major part of the typing of manuscripts. Joanne is in Prince George this week so could'nt be here with us this evening. The project resulted in the preparation of nearly 30 bright orange binders filled with hundreds and hundreds of articles about our local history.
• This year, the Friends of the Library are funding a rehabilitation project to replace the orange binders with new, stronger ones with better covers. As the material is transferred to the new binders, the lists of contents are revised to take into account the changes (additions and losses) which have occurred since the early 1980's.
• The web site which is being launched tonight does not replace the sets of printed material -- it is an extension of that collection. One of Mrs Calverley's wishes was that the information about our region, which she had so carefully gathered, should be easily available to young people in our schools. Today, of course, that means through a web site on the Internet.
• The web site we are launching tonight has a history of its own. In 1995, shortly after I retired, I began doing some organizational work with the Calverley Collection in its crowded little cupboard upstairs. Mary and I often remarked that we would like to "put it on the Internet", but at that time there was no way the Library could undertake such a project on its own.
• Then, in the summer of 1997, a Provincial Government program called "Communities Connect" was funded through the Library Services Branch to encourage communities to carry out projects which made use of the newer communications systems -- the Internet, for example.
• By the end of the summer, a detailed proposal was ready, supported by the School District, the City, the Peace Region Internet Society, the Historical Society and the local branch of the Retired Teachers' Association.
• In January of 1998 the funding was in place, I was named as the General Editor and the project got underway. Finding two typists proved to be a problem until I dropped off a Help Wanted notice at the Business Education department at Northern Lights College. Wendy Moore, senior instructor in Office Administration, asked if her whole class could take on the contract as a fund-raiser. I was delighted, of course, and the partnership worked very well. The students here and at the Chetwynd campus typed 670 articles (over 4000 pages) onto disk in a standard format for editing and that part of the project was completed within 4 months. The last files were handed over to me at the end of May.
• From this point on, I was kept busy writing new material for the site, editing the items the college had typed and arranging to transfer information to the site. John D'Amato at the School District's Technology Centre introduced me to the delights of web page management.
• Two of our university students -- Chris Mah and Shannon Pope -- worked as Internet trainers and web site developers at the Library for the summer. They were able to re-design the web site and make it more attractive and useable and teach me some of the finer points of site development.
• By late August Chris and Shannon were finished their job and the process of transferring files to the main server was left to me. Fortunately, it is not hard even though the idea of being able to do it from home still boggles my mind when I think about it.
• Both the Peace River Block News and the Mirror have given me permission to add materials from their publications to the site so that current developments will appear along with the historical items and not have to be searched for in later years. Both newspapers have also run articles about the project. CJDC-TV produced a short segment describing the Calverley Collection and the web site as part of the Heritage Week coverage.
• Negotiations with the BC Archives led to permission to add 60 historical images to the site. Some of these date back to the early 1900's and add a very welcome dimension to the site. Many other local photos have also been added to the package.
• Throughout the whole project, the Peace Region Internet Society has been most helpful. The connection to the Internet is provided free of charge by the Society through its agreement with the Library. PRIS put a direct link to the web site -- About the Peace Region of BC -- on its home page.
• Right from the beginning, Mary Toma has played a key role in the project. She spotted the grant opportunities, prepared the submissions and made sure that the Library was ready to do the work. She dealt with the Library Services people, with the City, with the School District and with a computer that sometimes proved to be balky. As Project Director, she looked after the administrative side of the project, leaving me to do the selection, editing and posting of material for the site. I really appreciated being able to concentrate on the history and leave the management and the worrying to her. The project contract was finished on January 31, on budget and two months ahead of schedule.
• I think Dorthea Calverley would have been pleased with what has been done to continue her work and this web site is really dedicated to her memory and to the Calverley Collection of local history materials.
• And now I'll turn things back over to Mary for the final official part of this launch party.
• Thank you.
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