BC History Digitization Program – 2013 Projects

In September 2006, the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia Library announced the BC History Digitization Program. The focus of the program is to promote increased access to British Columbia’s historical resources, including providing matching funds to undertake digitization projects that will result in free online access to our unique provincial historical material. Below is a list of successful applicants for 2013.

Project Title: BC’s Natural History: Imaging the Spencer Entomological Collection
Organization: Beaty Biodiversity Museum – Spencer Entomological Collection
Amount: $15,000
Description: The Spencer Entomological Collection will image 1000 B.C. insect specimens from three views using their Leica LAS montage system.

Project Title: A legacy of the flora of British Columbia: Digital archiving and presentation of the preserved plant collections of John W. Eastham (1879 – 1968)
Organization: Beaty Biodiversity Museum – The University of British Columbia Herbarium
Amount: $15,000
Description: The project will produce a publicly available digital image archive of 3,000 pressed plant specimens from the collections of John W. Eastham.

Project Title: Digitization of BCIT Student Newspaper ‘The Link’ from 1979 to 2004
Organization: British Columbia Institute of Technology
Amount: $4,024.50
Description: The digitization of The Link, years 1979 – 2004 will complete and complement a previously successful digitization project covering years 1965 – 1978, and will provide a bridge to the born digital issues.

Project Title: Chilliwack Progress Newspaper Digitization Project
Organization: Chilliwack Museum and Archives
Amount: $15,000
Description: The project will aim to digitize 90 years of the Chilliwack Progress newspaper (1891 – 1987) making them free and accessible to the public.

Project Title: Digitization of British Columbia Sessional Papers, 1867 – 1886
Organization: BC Government Publications Digitization Group
Amount: $1,264.18
Description: The project will digitize and make freely available the first 10 years of the British Columbia Sessional Papers.

Project Title: Tzedakah and Tikkun Olam: Hadassah-WIZO Council of Vancouver fonds Photograph Digitization Project
Organization: Jewish Museum and Archives
Amount: $6,462
Description: The project will digitize and make available online approximately 2,000 photographs from the Hadassah-WIZO Council of Vancouver fonds.

Project Title: Year Two Vancouver History Collection Digitization
Organization: Museum of Vancouver
Amount: $12,045
Description: Museum of Vancouver will photograph 2,582 historical artifacts from Vancouver’s Chinese community, Fonice Pulice and Yuch Chow’s historic photo studios, sculpture, and material from a variety of city businesses and residents who have formed the history of Vancouver.

Project Title: Japanese Canadian Redress Digitization Project
Organization: Nikkei National Museum
Amount: $9,091
Description: The project will digitize and make available 2300 archival items related to the history of Japanese Canadian redress – specifically the ten year fight (1977-1988) to achieve an apology from the Government of Canada and recognition for the unjust treatment of Japanese Canadians during World War II.

Project Title: Prince George Newspaper Digitization Project
Organization: Prince George Public Library
Amount: $15,000
Description: The project will add an additional 4 years to the digitized holdings of the Prince George Citizen newspaper. This will provide free online access to Prince George newspapers from 1909 to 1989.

Project Title: Turning the Pages Phase 3
Organization: Prince Rupert Library
Amount: $14,000
Description: The project will continue the work of digitizing the Prince Rupert Daily News. For 2013, the years 1934 to 1945 will be digitized and made available online.

Project Title: Abbotsford Living History Project
Organization: Reach Gallery and Museum
Amount: $10,000
Description: The project will digitize 5000 from the Abbotsford News photograph collection covering the years 1960 to 1990.

Project Title: Cadet Life at Royal Roads Military College: The Annual Photograph Albums from 1963-1989
Organization: Royal Roads University
Amount: $3,958
Description: The project will digitize and make available online 25 Royal Roads Military College large-format photograph albums which were created annually from 1963 through 1989. From arrival as recruits to graduation as officers, the official albums of rarely-seen photographs depict training and education Canadian military officers received in BC.

Project Title: The Crofton Family Fonds; first proprietors of the Harbour House Hotel
Organization: Salt Spring Island Archives
Amount: $3,974.82
Description: The project will digitize 5 albums containing 1200 photographs of the Crofton family, an important pioneer family and first proprietors of the Harbour House Hotel.

Project Title: Richard Harwood (Dick) Chambers Alpine Photographs Collection
Organization: Simon Fraser University Library
Amount: $2,281.50
Description: The project will scan approximately 900 photographs (slides and prints) documenting mountaineering culture in British Columbia from the late 1940s to the 1960s and comprising the first visual documentation of a number of peaks in the Coast Mountain region.

Project Title: SCMA Newspaper Digitization Project – Phase II
Organization: Sunshine Coast Museum and Archives
Amount: $6,219
Description: The project will digitize and make available issues of the Coast News to 1995 and the Peninsula Times (1963-1980).

Project Title: Skeena Voices: Looking Back at Northwestern BC
Organization: Terrace and District Museum Society
Amount: $15,000
Description: The project will digitize and make available a range of audio and audiovisual interviews and stories relating to the history of Northwestern British Columbia including 78 of the earliest episodes of the Skeena Journal television program.

Project Title: Snapshots of the West
Organization: Touchstones Nelson
Amount: $1,600
Description: The project will digitize and make available 202 glass-plate and cellulose negatives believed to have been taken by Jacob “Jake” Ludwig at the turn of the 20th Century.

Project Title: Student Newspaper 50th Anniversary Digitization Project – Phase 1
Organization: Trinity Western University Archives
Amount: $4,045
Description: The project will digitize issues of the University’s student newspaper from 1962, the year of the school’s founding, to 1992. Scans will be keyword searchable and freely available online via the TWU Archives website.

Project Title: Cassiar Asbestos Mining Corporation & Townsite fonds Photographs Series Digitization & Access Project
Organization: Northern British Columbia Archives
Amount: $1,332
Description: The project will digitize and make available 880 images from the CAMC fonds documenting the technological, economic and social developments that occurred when the Cassiar Asbestos Mining Corporation constructed an open strip mine, mill and townsite for its workers 50 miles south of the Yukon border.

Project Title: bcgenesis: The Colonial Despatches 1862
Organization: University of Victoria Libraries
Amount: $15,000
Description: Having previously digitized the Colonial Despatches from 1846, to 1861, the project will continue by digitizing Vancouver Island and BC despatches for 1862, linking them page for page to transcriptions of each despatch.

Project Title: City of Vancouver 1970s council minutes
Organization: City of Vancouver Archives
Amount: $5991.85
Description: One decade of of original City Council minutes including accompanying reports will be digitized and made available online in multiple formats.

Project Title: Gottfried Fonds Digitization and Access Project
Organization: Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
Amount: $1,428.42
Description: The project will digitize and make available vital records, significant documents and photographs relating to the Gottfried family who fled Nazi Germany to Shanghai before settling in British Columbia in the 1950s.

Project Title: The Province Newspaper Negatives 1950 – 1962
Organization: Vancouver Public Library
Amount: $14,141
Description: The project will digitize and make available images capturing important events in Vancouver and British Columbia from the 1950s to the early 1960s.

Project Title: Images from the Western Front: A Shared Cultural History
Organization: Western Front Society
Amount: $11,280
Description: This project will digitize and make available 1300 negatives depicting important events from BC’s cultural history including groundbreaking performances, exhibitions, music events, literary readings, dance and media arts from the first twenty years of the Western Front artist run centre (1973 – 1993).

For more information please contact: