Ailsa Hedley Leftwich has a BSc in Geography from the University of Calgary (1993) and a MAS in Archival Studies from the University of British Columbia (1996). She has been serving as the archivist for the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Canada since
1996, with a four-year break from 2000-2004 to return to the Bahá’í World Centre to serve in the Archives Office as Assistant Archivist and Records Manager. She had previously served as an assistant in
the Archives Office during an earlier period of service prior to completion of her studies. She has also volunteered for the Anglican Archives in Vancouver, the Glenbow Museum in Calgary. She worked for two summers with the Temple Conservation Team in Wilmette, and worked as a consultant for a local museum for several years in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan. She served two terms on the Board of the
Saskatchewan Council for Archives and Archivists, with particular interest in bringing educational programs to non-professionals volunteering in heritage institutions in the province.
When the Archives Course was first developed for the Wilmette Institute in ca. 2005, she helped revise the course manual and served as faculty for the first year, prior to beginning to raise her family, and returned as faculty in 2023. She has also served as one of the coordinators of a loosely knit international group of Bahá’í librarians and archivists, which presently operates as a Facebook group for Bahá’í Librarians and Archivists. She has also served on a local Spiritual Assembly since 2018, for several years as Secretary, where she has had the opportunity to put her professional advice to Assemblies to the test.
Outside of her present job, she has also provided proofreading, indexing or editorial assistance to other authors’ publications.
As part of her work for the National Spiritual Assembly, she served as managing editor for the 2nd edition of Messages to Canada, letters of Shoghi Effendi to the Canadian Bahá’í Community (1999). She assisted in the research and writing of “A History of Canada’s National Haẓíratu’l-Quds and Mashriqu’l-Adhkár” (Bahá’í Canada, Summer/Fall 2023). Most of the writing in her job, for the present, is providing guidance to or answering queries for local Assemblies, Bahá’í Councils and researchers, along with policy and procedural manuals and archival descriptions. The forensics behind writing the descriptions, solving mysteries and making connections, are part of what fuels her continued interest in her work, along with continued striving to learn more about application of archival theory to record-keeping, preservation and understanding of records. She enjoys working with some excellent volunteers and is excited about mentoring students.
2026 Courses
Introduction to Archives, Dec. 7 – Feb. 28, 2027 with Roger Dahl, Susan Rishworth, Damon McGhee, and Jane Cadwalader