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http://www.canada.com/topics/news/national/story.html?id=a6cfff84-6c33-48b9-b29d-7da711ac50bf&k=59924
National war treasures fading fast
Lee Berthiaume
CanWest News Service; Ottawa Citizen
Monday, May 22, 2006
OTTAWA -- Inside the non-descript National Research Council building M-23, a chunk of Canada's proud military history is in danger of being lost.
The building is home to the National Defence Image Library, which holds about 1 million photographs and negatives that chronicle Canada's military operations over the past 90 years.
Modern-day computers share space with dozens of index card drawers containing tens of thousands of photo captions that date back to before the Second World War. Crumbling photo albums packed with black and white photos of Canadians serving at home and abroad are stuffed into old cupboards in one hallway and another room is filled with metal cabinets that hold the majority of the library's image collection.
But while the library's most priceless items original gold-inlaid crests for every Canadian unit ever created are stored in a small temperature- and humidity-controlled room, the rest of the collection has been left to the elements and is quickly deteriorating because of time, rough handling and pollution.
"These are all artifacts," the library's manager, Sgt. Serge Tremblay, said during a recent tour of the facility. "They shouldn't be here."
Tremblay manages a small team of civilian researchers, image technicians and a string of rotating personnel that is trying to scan these photos onto compact discs that are supposed to last 300 years. The scanned pictures will then be sent to the National Archives for proper storage.
But lack of funding and personnel has severely hampered those efforts and the library loses between one and two per cent of its collection 10,000 to 20,000 images every year because they are not being stored properly.
"It's a race against time," said Tremblay, who estimates it will cost between $1.5 million and $2.5 million over five years to scan and catalogue all of the library's images. That doesn't include the nearly 45,000 reels of old film stored in the building's basement that are in the same peril.
During the First World War, the three branches of the Canadian military each had their own image libraries but they were amalgamated after the Second World War.
"We still use a lot of it," Tremblay said of the collection. Other countries, historians and companies that are working on documentaries or books often send requests for photos while relatives of former servicemen and women often stop by looking for records of their relatives' actions.
"A lot of people are looking for their grandfathers or family," Tremblay said. "The goal is to have them on the Internet so everyone can access them. All of these images are owned by all Canadians."
Throughout the two wars, military photographers took pictures of Canadian troops during training, down time and action and recorded the details on index cards that are still used today. However, corresponding negatives haven't fared well. Negatives stored in envelopes have started to become acidic, which crumples and distorts the image.
When photos and negatives do start to deteriorate, the only solution is to put them in a large refrigerator to freeze them and hope that one day, they can be rescued.
"This is the best we can do," Tremblay said.
His staff have managed to scan about 10 per cent of the collection, but his trained personnel are often called off on other assignments and the library doesn't have any dedicated funding, which he said has other priorities.
"We're short on people," he said. "We do this in our spare time. I do understand (the Department of National Defence) has other priorities, but this has to be done."
Irene Ogilvie was 24 when she responded to an ad in a British paper in 1943 looking for young Canadian women living in England. She was quickly signed on with a women's photography unit, given a crash course on how to use a camera, then started taking pictures for the RCAF.
"We took pictures of anything that was interesting or of interest to Canadians," Ogilvie, now 86, said in her Ottawa home. "I didn't realize then how historically important they were."
While male photographers were responsible for taking pictures on the frontlines, Ogilvie, the wife of famed Spitfire pilot Keith (Skeets) Ogilvie, remembered chronicling Canadian military leaders arriving in England, funerals for RCAF personnel killed in action and boatloads of cheering and enthusiastic Canadian soldiers arriving in England and sombre, quiet soldiers departing.
She is saddened to hear that thousands of photographs taken by photographers like herself are being lost every year. "I think it's terrible," she said. "They're special jewels. They are irretrievable."
Canadian military historian Jack Granatstein estimates most Canadians know the country's war history through about 1,000 well-known photographs, but don't realize there are tens of thousands more that are just as important.
Granatstein said it's "scandalous" that the government isn't doing everything it can to protect the image collection, which is important from both military and genealogical perspectives.
"They are an extraordinary record of Canadian wars and Canadian history."
Lt.-Col. Rob Williams, commanding officer of the Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Centre, under whose command the image library falls, acknowledged the image library is "low in the priorities" for the DND.
Instead, the department is trying to work with other ministries to find creative ways to save what he described as "treasures of Canada," though he was doubtful DND would be able to free up enough resources to tackle the problem in the near future.
"We're talking to other (government ministries) and maybe someone we don't know about will come forward and offer their help."
Ottawa Citizen
