September 7, 2015 - Comments Off on Metropolitan Water District Exhibit & Tour
Metropolitan Water District Exhibit & Tour
Please join LAAC for an exclusive tour of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) on Thursday 09/24 at 5:00 PM.
RSVP here: http://goo.gl/forms/GguBCstzgX
Directions and parking info will be provided to those who RSVP.
David Keller will lead the tour of the exhibit FROM THE ARCHIVES Reaching for Water: Rex Brandt and Metropolitan. This exhibit highlights the work of famed “California Scene Painter” Rex Brandt and his painting of Metropolitan’s Colorado River Aqueduct in 1936.
Following the exhibit will be an informal question and answer session about Metropolitan’s archival collections and access to them. Those who wish can adjourn to Philippe’s for dinner to continue discussion.
ABOUT
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWD) was founded in 1928 by a group of 13 cities. It has 26 member agencies and supplies drinking water to 19 million people. It covers a 5,200 square mile area from Ventura County to San Diego County and employs some 1,800 people.
The Metropolitan’s Historical Collection or Archives is a subset of MWD’s Records Management Program. The Records Team consists of eight members. David Keller was hired in 2003 to build the historical collection. Previous to this there was no archivist.
THE COLLECTION
The MWD Historical Collection contains traditional paper files. Some of its key examples include: 231 boxes of Executive Secretary Historical Records, 26 boxes of Historical Press Clips, 54 boxes containing approximately 120,000 4” x 5” historical negatives. Other film includes a large backlog of magnetic tape, and an even larger backlog of some estimated 200 K Photographs including: panoramic, glass and 35 mm slides, along with large numbers of prints. For employees and researchers, over 30,000 images have been digitized in an internal system powered by Cumulus called the MWD Image Collection. Several publication series exist, including the early employee newspaper, “Aqueduct News,” which is also digitized from 1934 – 1949.
