The following news release is from Newswire.ca:
OTTAWA, May 11, 2015 /CNW Telbec/ – Canadians now have at their disposal the most important online research tool ever created about the history of their country.
Canadiana.org, a digital initiative of extraordinary scale, is a joint effort of 25 leading research institutions, libraries and archives working together with the goal of creating Canada’s multi-million page, comprehensive online archive.
Do you want to stump your friends with trivia about early hockey history? Are you searching family roots in Canada? Perhaps you’re working on a project for Canada’s 150th birthday or searching for information about a relative that took part in the Great War. Canadiana.org‘s online resources can provide answers to these questions and much, much more.
Canadiana offers more than 35 million pages of primary-source documents in 21 languages, including languages of our First Nations.
“Last year was a tremendous year of accomplishment”, said Canadiana.org Executive Director, Ron Walker: “Our member libraries have absolutely transformed the way Canadians access and study information about their past. Canadians now have a superb resource to help them in all manner of historical research.”
Chronicling the people and institutions that shaped Canadian history from the 1600s to the mid-1900s, the digital collection is already of major value for researchers. The majority is available free of charge: from school children, their teachers, family historians, and genealogists, to scholars in a wide variety of fields. Other content is available at a nominal fee, to help defray the hefty preservation costs.
The Canadiana.org team is also rolling out a campaign designed to increase public awareness of the initiative. The campaign, “Be Curious”, is highlighting little-known historical facts about Canada through social media. The goal is to bring Canadian history to life by distributing it through modern communication channels.
About Canadiana.org
Canadiana.org is a non-profit, charitable organization founded to preserve Canada’s print heritage and make it accessible for future generations, with a special emphasis on material that is rare, scattered or at-risk. With support from its partners, Canadiana pioneered the first large-scale online collection of Canadian print heritage, containing a mix of digitized microfiche as well as thousands of full-colour scans from over 230 lending institutions.
Thanks to ResearchBuzz for the heads-up.
