New Online Exhibit at Nova Scotia Archives Website

Whether you are interested in stories about murder on the high seas, or the province's natural history, a new online exhibit tells a fascinating story created over a century ago by former Nova Scotia Museum curator and archivist, the late Harry Piers.

The exhibit, Harry Piers: Museum Maker, on the Nova Scotia Archives website, involved the digitization of some of the Nova Scotia Archives' and museum's earliest items, including photographs and artifacts dating back to around 1900.

"Harry Piers had an extraordinary life, and his influence inspired many in the archives and museums family here in our province," said Communities, Culture and Heritage Minister Leonard Preyra. "Archives and museum staff did a tremendous amount of work to make some of our province's earliest records accessible to Nova Scotians to learn and take pride in our past."

From 1900-1939, Mr. Piers maintained meticulous, detailed records of donations made to the museum's collection. In a series of accession ledgers, he carefully listed all donations, making note of their names, collection dates and localities, plus the significance of the artifacts and specimens. All these items are now part of either the archives' or museum's collections.

"Harry Piers was a renaissance man of this province's cultural history," said Bill Naftel, author of Wartime Halifax: The Photo History of a Canadian City at War, 1939-1945. "It matters not where the modern researcher penetrates - history, archaeology, material culture, geology, botany - it is almost certain that you will find his footprint of decades ago.

"At a time when nobody else cared, he and his museum did, and between them they preserved and recorded much that would otherwise have vanished utterly."

During the eight-month project - the first of its kind between the archives and the museum - team members tested the strengths of digital technology, learned about each other's collections, and gained new respect for the methods used by each other.

The items recorded by Piers' and his books have been stored by the province for 100 years, used sparingly by curators and archivists because of their fragile condition. Now, thanks to digital technology, the items and books have been scanned and representative samples of the information they contain are available online.

To explore the exhibit, go to http://gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/piers/