Chris Hives has served as University Archivist at the University of British Columbia (UBC) since 1988 and in this capacity has responsibility for the development of the institutional archives as well as the coordination of a corporate records management program. UBC has embarked on an ambitious digitization program resulting in the creation of significant electronic resources derived from historical material in a variety of formats. In addition to the scanning of documents and information relating the history of the university, Hives also oversaw the development of a digitization project to scan older UBC student theses so that they might be added to the library’s institutional repository, cIRcle. Last year, over one million pages of theses were scanned.

Over the past several years, Hives has participated in a number of important library initiatives. He chaired the library’s first e-Library Committee and, in that capacity, helped shape discussions that moved the organization into such areas as scholarly communications, institutional repository, ETD program, and more general digitization activities. All of these initiatives have now been spun off into what are becoming well established programs. Hives played a primary role in the development of the British Columbia History Digitization Program, wherein the UBC Barber Learning Centre provides funding to organizations in communities throughout the province to assist with their digitization projects. Recently he served as project coordinator for an important new strategic partnership between the library and Xerox Global Services to provide a new service model for the delivery of both user and staff copier, printing, and scanning services.

In addition to his work in the UBC Library, Hives also has been active in various professional organizations. He served as chair of, or on the executive of, the Canadian Council of Archives for most of the 1990s. Similarly with the provincial Archives Association of BC he served on the executive or in strategic positions for the last 20 years. Hives has been active with the Canadian Association of Research Libraries steering committee for the national digitization initiative, AlouetteCanada, and subsequently, Canadiana.org, of which he is a board member. He also has been working with a cross-sectoral group in British Columbia to help develop a provincial digitization strategy.