Research at the Archives

Archivists and reference staff are available in the Reading Room to:

Discuss projects and strategies
Point out possible archival sources
Show you how to use the finding aids

The Archives is unable to provide in-house research services. Depending on the scope of your research and the amount of materials you wish to access, research may take you thirty minutes, several hours, days, or even weeks.

Reference guides

Our reference guides will provide you with an introduction to some of the records that are most frequently requested at the Archives.

Tips for researching

Accessing materials

Our database provides the descriptions of records for all of our available holdings and is to the way you browse and seek out material relevant to your research.

To request a record when visiting the Archives, researchers will need to provide a record’s title, reference code, and container information available from the description.

There may be no digital copy of the records to look at from the database. Only a small portion of our total volume of records have been digitized to view and download online.
Restrictions on access
Request items from the vault

You can request items from the vault between 10am and 4:30pm.

All material must be returned by 4:45pm.

A small portion of our holdings are held at a secondary satellite site. While most records are housed on-site at the Archives, requests for material at the satellite location will take additional time to retrieve. Archives staff will advise researchers and work with them to make arrangements. Researchers are welcome to contact us in advance to confirm any record requests.

Statement on offensive and harmful language in archival description

The descriptions of records in our database may contain offensive and discriminatory language reflective of the time period in which the records were created and the attitudes of their creators. This includes language that is racist, colonial, ableist, homophobic, sexist, classist, or otherwise harmful. In addition, older descriptions written by Archives staff may also contain offensive terms or demonstrate a lack of contextual detail.

We are actively working to address the presence of harmful language in our online database. Legacy descriptions are currently being evaluated and revised where appropriate.

As archivists work through this material, creators’ original titles or caption information will be retained to preserve the historical context in which the record was created. Archivists may also supply additional contextual information.

This work is ongoing, iterative, and labour intensive, and will take time given our extensive holdings.

We welcome any questions and feedback on this process. Email archives@vancouver.ca or phone 604-736-8561.