New URL for original "Camera Workers" site

Due to the impending closure of the Shaw.ca web space on which I had hosted since 1999 Camera Workers: The British Columbia, Alaska and Yukon Photographic Directory, 1858-1950, I have integrated the original site with the newer version. The integrated site, based on the design of the original Shaw-hosted site, uses HTML frames coding.

The integrated site is at http://cameraworkers.davidmattison.com/cw1858-1950

As of March 3, 2017 I had transferred all data from volume 1 of the original site to the integrated site. When you click on the New Site link in the contents menu on the left, the new version of Camera Workers appears in the centre or main frame.

I will continue to migrate data from volume 2 and once that is completed the URL will change again to the newer version as a standalone application.

You can access the newer version as a standalone application at http://cameraworkers.davidmattison.com

The newer version runs on The Next Generation of Genealogy Sitebuilding (TNG) by Darrin Lythgoe.

Colonial North American Project at Harvard University

Harvard University has embarked on a remarkable multi-year project to digitize and make freely available all 17th and 18th century archival records and publications from all its campus repositories relating to life in colonial North America. This ambitious enterprise is called the Colonial North Amercian Project at Harvard University.

In addition to the collection itself, there are also a series of thematic essays which provide deeper insight into the contents of this digital library and archives.

It appears that the public interface is powered by the Omeka open source software.

Denmark presents digitized cultural heritage to the world

According to this BBC News story, Denmark has opened its digitized cultural heritage of over two million images and other types of content to the world. The site is called arkivdk. The content comes from over 500 Danish archives. There appears to be no English language interface as yet.

Saskatchewan Historic Newspapers Online launched

The Saskatchewan Historic Newspapers Online collection has been created in collaboration between the Saskatchewan Archives and Sask History Online (SHO). The project when completed will see the digitization of newspapers from all across Saskatchewan from 1878 through to the mid 1960s. The first stage of the project that you see here focuses upon Saskatchewan newspapers published during the Great War period, from January 1914 through to the end of hostilities in 1918. This initial stage will ultimately include the equivalent of approximately 400 reels of microfilm from nearly 100 communities, making up over 200,000 pages of newsprint. The collection includes newspapers from communities across the province which were published in English, French, German, and Ukrainian.

Source: Saskatchewan Historic Newspapers Online (SHNO)

Internet Archive Book Images via Flickr

Flickr is hosting nearly 3 million images extracted from digitized books at the Internet Archive through programming developed by an academic researcher. The Internet Archive Book Images is an amazing resource and it's all in the public domain.

Source: "Millions of historical images posted to Flickr" by Leo Kelion, BBC News: Technology, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-28976849

Census of Canada 1921 available for free at Ancestry.ca

In one of those P3 (public-private partnership) deals, the first phase in the release of the 1921 Census of Canada was announced by the Library and Archives Canada on August 9, 2013. Here's how it reads:

Canadians can now browse the 1921 Census data of the Canadian population, free of charge on Ancestry.ca.
The 1921 Census includes 197,529 images; it is therefore a massive electronic file to prepare and make accessible. Once it is fully indexed, this census will be the largest source of Canadian genealogical information online.
Researchers can explore the 197,529 pages of information through an index of districts and sub-districts. Ancestry.ca will also take the extra step of indexing 8.8 million names, addresses and other information for a searchable database, and developing advanced search tools to go along with it. Canadians will only be required to pay for the extra convenience of doing advanced searches from the comfort of their home. Ancestry.ca will assume the costs associated with this work and will offer a choice of free or paid access.

• Free access will be possible in person at Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and through hundreds of subscribing libraries across Canada. 
• Free access to raw census records will be available online. 
• Paid access will only be necessary if someone wants the extra convenience of doing advanced searches from home.

Individuals can make the most of their visit in Library and Archives Canada’s reading room in Ottawa by preparing in advance and consulting Preparing for a Visit or viewing the Orientation Services for Clients at 395 Wellington video or reading the blog post, The Top Five Things You Need to Know Before You Visit.

Canadians can access censuses taken before 1921 on Library and Archives Canada’s Census webpage.

Library and Archives Canada places of Census of Manitoba, 1870 online

The Library and Archives Canada has placed the Census of Manitoba, 1870 online. According to its news blurb of July 11, 02013,

This census was taken shortly after Manitoba joined Confederation.
This census provides the names of more than 12,200 individuals living in Manitoba at that time and contains information such as age, marital status, place of birth, religion, race and name of the father.

You can search the census by keywords, surname, given names and age.

RIP AltaVista

AltaVista, once the best search engine in the world, was put to rest by Yahoo! The announcement of its demise was made on June 28 as part of some other services Yahoo! was shutting down. When you visit AltaVista.com as of July 8, you will be automatically re-directed to Yahoo.com.

ArchivesCanada.ca in beta on AtoM 2.0

Great to see ArchivesCanada.ca, the national database of Canadian archival descriptions, running in beta mode under AtoM 2.0 (formerly ICA-AtoM). AtoM stands for Access to Memory. Only a small sampling of descriptions are available in the beta version. According to the header blurb, "Archival descriptions from archival institutions across all provinces and territories will be available when the site goes live at http://archivescanada.ca in September 2013." The Canadian Council on Archives, which nearly ceased to exist thanks to the Conservative Government's cutting the funding for the National Archival Development Program, is to be commended for persevering in the face of such humiliating circumstances. They rose to the challenge and I'm looking forward, since I manage the British Columbia equivalent of this database which is called MemoryBC, to the fall and beyond when all the BC descriptions can finally be updated.

UBC Library digitizes historic BC newspapers

According to this Canadiana.ca update, UBC Library has completed the digitization of 24 historic BC newspapers dating between 1865 and 1924. You can search these through the Canadiana Discovery Portal, a Google-like search engine that currently has its own failings, not the least of which is the ability to isolate a set of records such those valuable newspapers.

As the update states, "There are 8862 issues in total and over 45,000 pages. Here are the names of the newspapers:

Abbotsford Post
Alberni Advocate
Atlin Claim
Bella Coola Courier
Boundary Creek Times
British Columbia Record
Cariboo Sentinel (Barkerville)
Cumberland News
Daily Building Record (Vancouver)
Daily Ledger (Ladysmith)
Grand Forks Sun
Hedley Gazette
Hot Springs News (Ainsworth)
Kootenay Mail (Revelstoke)
Ledge (Greenwood)
Ledge (Nakusp, New Denver, Fernie)
Massett Leader
Miner (Nelson)
Mining Review (Sandon)
Moyie Leader
Nelson Economist
Phoenix Pioneer
Prospector (Fort Steele)
Tribune (Nelson)"

In the Canadiana Discovery Portal Search "Everything" option list, you can change the search option to Titles. There's a catalogue record for the newspaper itself and then individual records for each issue which will take you to UBC's British Columbia Historic Newspapers site. Congratulations UBC on making these invaluable resources freely available.

OpenMetadata.org opens

OpenMetadata.org has launched. It's a catchy but very misleading name since it deals only with statistical and scientific metadata. The site is the property of "a small group of private companies working with research data and statistics, dedicated to providing services around metadata standards such as SDMX and DDI. Our goal is to provide better visibility and use of existing data resources, whether these are publically available or require permission to access." (About Us).

One of the databases you can consult that makes use of these standards is the Open Survey Catalog, compiled in collaboration with the International Household Survey Network (established 2004). As the name implies these are essentially questionnaires on a wide variety of topics. You may or may not, however, be able to access the actual data because the word catalog means this is a database describing these surveys.

Google eBookstore launches in Canada

Google has launched its competitive Google eBooks in Canada. They're going head to head against the likes of Amazon.ca and Indigo.ca (Chapters). Barnes & Noble does not have a Canadian presence. Google's offerings can be read on any current technology platform: Android operating system devices, smartphones, Apple products, Web browsers and "any dedicated ebook reader that supports the Adobe eBook platform, including the Reader™ from Sony".

While there are supposed to be around two million public domain books you can download for free, there is no one-click way to find them. You have to search for and then click the "Free Only" button on the search results page. There are, however, two "Best of the Free" lists, one for "classics" and one for Canadiana. The Canadiana one is rather short and I suspect is based on the number of times users have downloaded the titles.

The search results sorting options are also rather primitive: Any price or Free, and Relevance or Date published. The Date published is in descending order (most recent to oldest).

For this to be a useful tool, there need to be many more filtering options such as by author (A-Z and Z-A for starters), by title (A-Z and Z-A for starters), by date range (by decades and specific years for starters) and by publishers. How hard is it to figure this stuff out ahead of time Google?

Canadian Feature Film Database at Library and Archives Canada

The Library and Archives Canada has a Canadian Feature Film Database. It appears to have been online since at least May 02010. Here is the blurb from the start page for the database:

The Canadian Feature Film Database is based on the printed Index (Canadian Feature Film Index) begun in 1972.

The Database based on the Index:

• compiles the principal credits of every Canadian feature film from 1913 to 2009

• establishes a list of Canadian feature films from published information up to 2009

• features currently over 4,300 films

Future updates:
addition of post-2009 films is planned for a future iteration of the database

"Searching for the Stars" (the real ones in the heavens) through Searcher magazine

My most recent article for Searcher magazine, "Searching for the Stars: Cosmic Views and Databases", made the cover of the September 2011 issue as you can see below and is available online (just select the hyperlinked article title in this sentence).

Searcher magazine cover, September 2011

DataBC, BC Government Open Data site opens

On July 19, 02011, the British Columbia Government launched its Open Data initiative through its DataBC Web site. The data that's currently available appears to be heavily weighted towards geomatic applications. The government is encouraging the creation of Apps and provides links to various Tools "to mashup BC data."

National Portal To Historic Collections from American Heritage and AASLH

Started in 2007, American Heritage and the American Association for State and Local History (AASLH) currently sponsor the National Portal To Historic Collections. According to the About page,

"... the National Portal is a massive, multiyear project to provide information on 4,000 historical sites, including easily searchable online access to digital images and descriptions of millions of artifacts housed in the collections of American museums, historical societies, National Parks, and other institutions across the country.
The objects being added to this national “clearinghouse” include documents, photographs, paintings and artifacts, and run the gamut from military artifacts to artworks to the tools and mementos of everyday life."

New version of The Wayback Machine released

A beta edition of a new version of The Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive is now available. According to Gary Price on this Information Today Newsbreak about this release, "Wayback is an essential internet research tool and should be one of the first resources discussed when teaching basic web-based research skills. It offers more than 150 billion archived web pages with some material dating back to 1996."

SepiaTown, sharing historic photographs the Web 2.0 way

SepiaTown.com is a new Web site that allows individuals and institutions to share historic photographs the Web 2.0 way, via a Google Maps mashup. According to the site, "The objective of SepiaTown is to map a virtual past by collecting and mapping a vast collection of historical and vintage photographs, prints, film, audio and other media." SepiaTown, Inc. is based in Sunnyside, New York. PCMag.com named SepiaTown one of its Top 100 Web Sites of 2010 in the Undiscovered: Info category.

Canadiana Discovery Portal opens in beta mode

The Canadiana Discovery Portal has opened in beta mode. The portal is a one-stop search portal through which you can search by keyword for thousands of catalog (metadata) records from contributing institutions across Canada. As yet there is no advanced search facility, just a Google-like search box. The portal is a new service from Canadiana.org. For digitized content such as publicly accessible documents from Early Canadiana Online or photographs from institutions such as the Library and Archives Canada or the Vancouver Public Library, you can view the digitized content with one mouse click.

Yahoo! Clues, more data about agreggate searching habits

According to an Information Today Newsbreak story by Greg R. Notess on November 29, 02010 about Yahoo! Clues, "Yahoo! Clues presents information about popular searches that have been done by the “millions of people who use Yahoo! to search each day.” Similar to Google Trends and Google Insights for Search, Clues has both similar and unique data points. The data available includes search volume, searcher demographics (age group, gender, and income), searcher location, search flow, and related searches. This free tool can be used to get a sense of the types of data available to advertisers about search patterns and demographics."

The Yahoo! Blog posting about Yahoo! Clues offers a video and the Yahoo! Clues site is here.