SAIN merger

As part of the SCAA's mission to promote the use of Archives, we have maintained the Saskatchewan Archival Information Network (SAIN), with the help of the University of Saskatchewan.  SAIN initially was established in 2000 and has gone through many transformations since. It is a network of information about archival holdings in Saskatchewan and currently consists of two databases, one containing descriptions of archival collections and the other descriptions and digital scans of photographs in our members' collections.

One of the most significant transformations was the deployment of the software platform "Access to Memory" or AtoM.  This piece of software is open-source, developed by Artefactual Systems in British Columbia, and has been implemented by most provinces and territories including Archives Canada at the national level. AtoM allows our members to directly enter their descriptions into the database, without the help of additional staff.  The AtoM software also has the ability to handle all the differing levels of in archival description making SAIN a powerful research tool.

This ability has made it possible to merge SCAA's two databases into one and as of late 2019 SCAA, in partnership with the U of S and Artefactual, have undertaken the process of merging the two databases of SAIN into one. This project is expected to be completed in the first few months of 2020. This will allow the public to conduct research and searches of the full content of both databases at once, including the ability to search within different photograph collections

Please watch this website for further news on this project.

The SAIN merger project was scheduled to conclude at the end of March and the new “MemorySask - SAIN” merged database was to be publicly launched. Due to the COVID-19 outbreak the SCAA Archive Advisor’s travel has been restricted and site-visits to members postponed. The University of Saskatchewan's IT staff, who host the database, are dealing with other priorities at this time. Therefore the launch is having to be postponed. The SCAA and U of S have made temporary hosting arrangements. This will allow members to begin to contribute to the new database and can help facilitate some of our members to work from home.

AtoM is being used provincially and nationally;

British Columbia, https://www.memorybc.ca/; Alberta, https://albertaonrecord.ca/; Manitoba, https://main.lib.umanitoba.ca/; Ontario, https://www.archeion.ca/; New Brunswick, https://search.canbarchives.ca/; Nova Scotia, https://memoryns.ca/; Prince Edward Island, http://www.archives.pe.ca/atom/; Newfoundland, https://arc.anla.nf.ca/.

 And finally, of course, Library and Archives of Canada, https://archivescanada.accesstomemory.ca/