Honouring the 10th Anniversary of the Parinirvana of the Vidyadhara the
Venerable Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche, the Dharma Ocean Society sent
a beautiful colour brochure to all members of the Shambhala sangha worldwide.
Shambhala centres worldwide helped us to launch our first Parinirvana Day
membership and fundraising drive.
The Archives received donations from 423 people (159 new members) from
Canada, the US, Japan, and Brazil. Audio Recovery
The Sonic Solutions Digital Audio Workstation for the restoration and remastering
of sound recordings was purchased and installed in the Shambhala Archives.
Other equipment purchased included a compact disk recorder and sophisticated
equipment for the transfer of analog to digital data.
The equipment recently enabled us to restore inaudible audio tapes of the
Chogyam Trungpa's teachings on the Shambhala Tradition. These teachings
are being put into book form.
Communication/Access
The Shambhala Archives Web Site was designed by Alexis Shotwell, a student
intern funded through the Young Canada Works program of the Department
of Canadian Heritage.
Staff of the Archives provided researchers with giuded access to our holdings.
Control of Holdings: Archival Arrangement, Description and Preservation
Activities
A finding aid containing archival descriptions of more than 200 video tapes
from the Video Recovery Project was completed by Simon Lloyd, a library
student at Dalhousie University, with a grant from the Canadian Council
of Archives.
The transcription and correction of more than 100 talks was completed by
Tingdzin Otro, a visiting monastic and scholar.
Significant work was done on rehousing several of the Archives collections,
including photographs in the Information Office and the Dorje Kasung Photographic
Fonds, posters from the Vajradhatu Information Office, and original Tibetan
manuscripts Chogyam Trunpa's dharma lectures, Shambhala texts, poetry,
and other writings.
Original and duplicate transcriptions of more than 1,000 talks by Chögyam
Trungpa, Rinpoche, were inventoried and rehoused, with duplicates sent
to offsite storage, providing room for new acquisitions in our vault.
Staff Training and Development
Alexis Shotwell was the successful candidate for a six month Young Canada
Works International Internship in audio-visual archiving, one of only ten
international internships funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage
in 1997. The internship, which concludes on March 31, 1998, included four
weeks in New York City with Vidipax, an internationally acclaimed video
restoration company, attendance at the annual conference of the Association
of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) in Washington, D.C., four months of training
at the Shambhala Archives, and two weeks at the Department of Audio-Visual
Copying of the National Archives of Canada in Ottawa. Congratulations Alexis!
Gordon Kidd, James Hoagland and Carolyn Gimian also attended the annual
AMIA conference in Washington.
James and Gordon travelled to Montreal for training in Sonic Solutions.
Further on-site training was given when the computer was installed.
Carolyn Gimian, while on a leave of absence, continued to chair the Database
Steering Committee of the Council of Nova Scotia Archives and accepted
a three year term on the editorial board of Archivaria, the journal of
the Association of Canadian Archivists. Judith Smith completed a computer
course which improved the way the Archives works with its financial tasks.
Related Activities
The Shambhala Archives helped with financing and administrative support
of the VCTR Collections project, to preserve and restore the personal and
household belongings and practice objects that belonged to the Vidyadhara.
Technical problems arising with brand new recordings of Pema Chodron and
Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche were corrected; 75 hours of recorded material
were recovered.
John Castlebury and Windhorse Press produced a beautiful commemorative
broadside of original poetry of Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche. Several
hundred copies were donated to the Shambhala Archives for distribution
to many of our donors.
Year of the Earth Tiger
The primary focus for 1998 is the Audio Recovery Project, beginning with
the remastering of the 1973 Vajradhatu Seminary teachings of the Vidyadhara.
We will integrate work on ungrading the current database with the needs
of this project, and begin an investigation into increasing much needed
space in the vault using track storage. Please continue your generous support
