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.

Born Digital report available for public comments

In 2011, an international group of ten archivists and special collections curators gathered for the first of a series of conversations about how born-digital materials are acquired and transferred to archival repositories. The resulting report, Born Digital: Guidance for Donors, Dealers, and Archival Repositories, offers recommendations to help ensure the physical and intellectual well being of digital media and files during different stages of the acquisition process.

A draft of Born Digital has been published with MediaCommons Press, an innovative online publisher committed to open public review, and is currently open for your comments: http://mediacommons.futureofthebook.org/mcpress/borndigital/
We invite you to read the report, share your thoughts via the easy-to-use commenting interface, and take part in a discussion with the larger community of people concerned about the acquisition and preservation of born-digital materials. Your feedback will provide an important level of peer review as the report’s co-authors continue revising and preparing Born Digital for final publication.
If you have any questions about the report, please contact Gabby Redwine at gredwine@austin.utexas.edu

Source: DIGITAL-PRESERVATION@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, 02013 01 09

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.