The Ladysmith and District Historical Society, in partnership with the Town of Ladysmith has secured the photograph and documents portion of Ray Knight's legacy to the people of Ladysmith.

This collection has been able to provide historians a valuable record of our area history. A good deal of them are reproduced and in the BC Archives.

With a donation from a generous sponsor and The Town's financial help we now have a collection of 69 boxes and 5 filing cabinets. They contain slides, photographs, negatives and papers chronicling the whole history of Ladysmith and District.

The Ladysmith and District Credit Union has given us space to store the collection. The Town provided us the crew to move the boxes.

Our present job is to catalog the collection. We still need volunteers as this is an enormous task. Every single box is filled to the brim.

Once this is done we will be able to make the collection available to the public. This will be done in a few ways. Naturally the first is a catalog so we know what we have. The ultimate is an on line program which will allow the collection to be searched from the internet.

The second phase of the project, the acquisition of the artifacts has been completed. Once again the town and our private donors have resulted in our having a good portion of the artifacts in our joint possession. Now we have to catolog them and make them available to The Town and area.  We have already used a number of items for public display in Ladysmith. 

A good deal of gratitude is due to the Knight family for keeping this collection for The Town and residents. As well The Town has aided us financially and physically. We have had many donations of time and money from residents. The generosity of everyone has been overwhelming.

Part of Ray Knight's efforts in the documents and photographs was the photographing of the images on 35 mm film. These negatives and contact prints have all been placed in suitable books. So far we have found 5 books of contact sheets and negatives. Once the actual prints have been cataloged the contact prints and negatives will be cross referenced.

The computer system is being upgraded with the latest software for Archive Cataloging. Shortly after the cataloging of the images we expect to have an "on line" listing. This will allow the public access to the collection. It will be possible to order reproductions of images for research and "non commercial" use. Commercial use of the images will require permission from the custodians of the collection, the Town of Ladysmith and the Ladysmith and District Historical Society.

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