[New!] How Do You Measure a Year?
How Do You Measure a Year? A look at the Archival Technician's First Year on the Job.
Submitted by: Tysha, Archival Technician
One year, 365 ½ days, or five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes. How would you measure a year? In daylights? In sunsets? In midnights? In cups of coffee? In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife, like the musical Rent suggests
My first year at Oxford County Archives can be measured in anniversaries, new skills, experiences, events, displays, new faces, and so much more!
Before I jump headfirst into my own rendition of Seasons of Love, (more like Season of Chaos, in my situation.) I should probably introduce myself!
Hi! I’m Tysha (Tee-Sh-uh), I have my BA in History for Wilfrid Laurie and my MA in Library and Information Science from Western. I have a cat (Senator Catmé Amitala) and two dogs, (Komoka and Kamila). My favourite colour is Indigo; my comfort movie is Twister (1996) staring Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. My top three favourite musical artists are: Three Days Grace, STYX, and Garth Brooks (my music playlist will give anyone whiplash.) My favourite TV show is M*A*S*H. I love nature photograph and going on hikes. I collect Barbie movies, and I have seen Twisters (2024) staring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos, at least eight times in theaters (We’re not going to question that).
That should be enough facts for an introduction, right? I’d say so! If you want to know more about me and my thoughts on how M*A*S*H is a masterpiece in anti-war messages, trauma bounding, and dark humour, you will have to stop by archives! But for now, we will put a pin in and move on to how my first year at the Oxford County Archives went.
As many of you know, 2025 has been the year on anniversaries for the county. We have been celebrating things like we are Oprah handing out prizes on her talk show, 175th here, 25th there, 60th goes to you, and so. It has not stopped! I joined the archives right before the anniversary storm started picking up, but there was no calm before the storm. I had to hit the ground running, and oh my, let me tell you, I was not ready for the sudden change of pace. Liz, the county archivist tried to warn me before I started but I was not mentally prepared for just how busy we were going to be.
For context, I previously worked as the Digitization Assistant for the Elgin County Archives. It was a calm, relaxing, single task job. I simply had to scan newspapers for three and a half days a week. While I loved that job, I knew that one day I would need to move on, so when the opportunity to for a new adventure appeared, I took it! The stuff of Oxford County welcomed me with open arms and warm smiles.
The transition from Elgin to Oxford County, from Digitization Assistant to Archival Technician/ Legislative information was not easy for me. I went from listening to my music all day without a care in the world to being bombarded with emails and phone calls! I jumped out of my chair for the first several months every time the phone rang!
In addition to the chaos of people outside of the archives know that I existed, I had to deal with the other half of my job title... I am pretty familiar with the way a typical archive operates, although there are some various so, I was able to settle into the archival portion of my job, but I struggled with the Legislative half.
With Legislative Information, we deal a lot with MFIPPAs (Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act), PIHPAs (Personal Health Information Protection Act), and Records Management. All things that are way outside of my wheelhouse… There are a lot of rules when dealing with these types of records and a lot of legal paperwork do to.
For the first several months I shied away from interacting with MFIPPA/PHIPA requests and records management questions. I am happy as a clam to move boxes and read through documents to redact information, but I am not a fan of emailing clients and dealing with Law firms. All the legal things really scared me; I was always worried that I would relay the wrong information to the wrong person and cause a big privacy breach! But after some good advice and encouragement from my team, I have gotten better!
Now I don’t have an extreme fear of making a mistake, just a normal amount of fear! I’m joking! Dealing with MFIPPAs and PHIPA is not as scary as I thought it would be, and things have been getting better. Although, sometimes when I get overwhelmed with the work, I minimize all my browsers and tasks, take a couple of calming breathes and look at my computer backgrounds or watched the bubble screen saver go nuts. I know that I still have a lot to learn regarding records management and privacy information, but I have great team that support me every step of the way!
Aside from all the legal mumbo-jumbo that I have had to learn through my years here, I have had the joys of creating a variety of new displays for the administration building on Reeve Street. I have also taken the opportunity to update and revamp the Archives’ website!
I have so much planned for the next year that I can’t wait to get started!
So, here’s to another year, 365 ½ days, or five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes with the Oxford County Archives. I am so happy that I join such a great group of people. Thank you, Liz, Lindsey, and Jess, for a wonderful first year!