Volume 2 - ElectricCanadian.com

APPENDIX V.THE ARCHIVES DEPARTMENT.Until 1903 the documents on file at the head office of thebank were preserved in about thirty wooden pigeon-holesin the vault opening into the old board-room, now the officeof the general manager. The old books and vouchers of thehead office and branches were stored in a comparatively smallvault on the second floor, where now only a few of the headoffice records can be accommodated for a limited number ofyears before being removed to make wayfor others. Aboutthis time the head office building was extended towards the rearand the present board-room was erected. Underneath it therewas built a large vault for the storage of old records, which wasfor many years the largest vault in the city of Toronto. During1903 a stack of steel files was installed in the vault on the thirdfloor, and the work of transferring the documents from thewooden pigeon-holes to these files, and of making a card indexof their contents, was begun. These were the humble beginningsof what has since become the Archives Department ofthe bank, with two large buildings devoted solely to its use,one in Toronto and another in Vancouver, 1 and a third incontemplation, to be erected in Winnipeg.To most people the idea that the care of the records of abank constitutes a serious problem for the management willcome as a surprise; yet a moment's reflection will show that thework of a bank consists largely of making records of thetransactions of each day, and that a small army of men isemployed all day long in filling large books and forms of alldescriptions with such records. The quantity of paper thusused isenormous, amounting in the course of a year to many1See plate 70, facing this page.