About Swift Archival Solutions

I’m Katrina Swift, a Certified Archivist and Records Manager based on Nova Scotia’s South Shore.

I hold a graduate degree in Archives and Records Management, along with graduate training in the field of Heritage Conservation. I’m a member of the Association of Canadian Archivists and the Council of Nova Scotia Archives. I’ve spent my career working across museum, university, and provincial archives settings. But some of my most meaningful work has come from the volunteer side of the table: founding a historical society from scratch, serving as an officer and director on small nonprofit boards, and doing the less glamorous administrative work that keeps a small organization running.

For four years, I worked at the provincial level as an archives advisor, serving as an archival consultant to a wide range of member organizations across the province. In that role, I:

• Built relationships with archives across the province, spotting gaps and bringing new institutions into the fold

• Delivered hands-on training that built lasting institutional capacity

• Guided institutions through funding applications and reporting

• Advised on archival standards and policy, translating international frameworks into practices smaller institutions could sustain

• Contributed to executive-level governance and adjudication, helping shape province-wide funding decisions.

That work sits alongside years of hands-on archival experience: processing and cataloguing collections, managing museum accessions, digitizing material for public access, and supporting time-sensitive projects at major national and university archives. Together, it gives me both the advisory perspective to help guide an organization’s strategy and the practical, in-the-trenches experience to help execute it.

That dual perspective shapes how I work. I know the professional standards, and I know what’s actually realistic for an organization with three volunteers and a Saturday afternoon a month to give. My job is to bridge the two, so your records get the care they deserve without a plan that collapses under real-world constraints.

Archives only work if people can actually find what they’re looking for. My approach blends rigorous, standards-based practice with a practical eye toward what a small museum, municipality, or organization can realistically maintain long after the project wraps up. No system is worth building if no one’s left to run it.

I work with organizations of every size, from single-room community archives to institutional and government clients, but small, volunteer-run heritage organizations are where I do some of my favourite and most frequent work.

Most of my work is with organizations in Atlantic Canada, but many services (assessments, policy development, digitization planning, training) translate well to remote delivery, and I’m open to travel engagements for clients elsewhere in Canada and beyond.