The staff member: Meggie Savard

Like many other buildings in St-Henri, the Muse des Ondes Emile Berliner is being rejuvenated.

That costs money,$6.5 million, and that has to come from somewhere. Meggie Savard is leading the charge as the museum's head of development.

• The inventor: Emile Berliner
• The volunteer:Robert McDuff
• Home of theVictrola: Hidden gem ofSt-Henri

She sees the museum as a catalyst for innovation as well as a gatekeeper to a part of St-Henri's rich history.

In addition to being a museum, the building is home to a legendary recording studio, where artists like Feist, Jean Leloup, and Isabelle Boulay have recorded.

The studio was Canada's first room built with a polycylindrical acoustic system. The curved wood on the walls of the room mimics the properties of acoustic instruments; the acoustic design is integrated with the architecture.

There aren't many of these rooms left in the world certainly none left in Montreal. As part of the museum's expansion plans, the studio will be merged with the museum. That's only one improvement being made during the renovations.

The main building will be completely overhauled, and that requires moving all of the museum's 30,000-plus pieces to a new space.

Their new home will be four times larger than it was before, and the items may be better protected from temperature and dust.

As part of the overhaul, the museum's administration wants to update their archival systems to bring them closer to international standards.

Work isn't over for Savard after the renovations are done.

She sees the museum as an educational centre, as an archive and as a link for musicians, others in the industry and historians to the neighbourhood that used to be "the home of the Victrola."

St-Henri Chronicles

St-Henri Chroniclesis a collaboration between the Department of Journalism at Concordia University, and CBC Montreal.

Students in a graduate-level multimedia course were asked to find and produce original stories on St-Henri for their final class project.

They spent the winter term developing these stories, and experimented with sound, pictures, video, infographics and maps to tell them.

• About the journalists