[Personal_archives] A Friday Ode to Misc.

[reilly at ucalgary.ca]

mis·cel·la·ne·ous/ˌmisəˈlānēəs/
Adjective:

   1. (of items or people gathered or considered together) Of various
types or from different sources.
   2. (of a collection or group) Composed of members or elements of
different kinds: "a miscellaneous collection".

I offer an illustration of why I believe "miscellaneous" is a type of the
Canadian mindset. In 1987 I was loaned to the World Council of Churches in
Geneva to assist with preparing the archives of the Worlds Students
Christian Federation in anticipation of their centennial. The fonds is
mixed and consists of both records and personal papers.

As the interns who came from WSCF Asia and WSCF Europe and I worked
through the project over the course of three years one series stood out
with its  unique arrangement. It  was the records of the office that had
been established in Toronto when Geneva was deemed unsafe for the rescue
work the WSCF was engaged in during the 1940s. The files were still in the
boxes that had been shipped back from Hart House at UofT. The filing
system was "as it was". Each sub series began with a file labeled
"Miscellaneous". Those files documented the connections that kept an
organization "in exile" together in a time of war. They were the pieces
that didn't have a natural home. It was the only time in 100 years that
this arrangement was used and the interns called it the "Canadian" series.