By Gordon Lambie
The recent suspension of activities at the Magog historical society due to funding negotiations with the city triggered some concern among other local historical societies and archives, including an open letter by David Lacoste, the Executive Director of Sherbrooke’s historical society and museum, that was published in The Record last week.
Speaking more on the subject with the paper, Lacoste said that he has no intention of meddling in Magog’s municipal affairs, but rather has concerns about the fragility of the resources people in rural Quebec have to preserve community memory.
“If it was just Magog then we might not have written the letter, but it’s a generalized issue,” Lacoste said, noting that there is no uniform system or protocol from one historical society to the next for what happens if services suddenly need to be shut down.
The executive director explained that in many cases volunteers put in a lot of time and energy to the preservation of documents, but he questioned what happens to that history when the time and energy is used up and there is nothing to replace it.
