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 2010.
Project title: Ray Knight Collection Digitization Program
Organization: Ladysmith Archives
Amount: $7,250
Description: This project will continue the work started in 2008 to digitize historical photographs of Ladysmith, including images of early logging equipment, trains, the coal mine, stores, hotels, and shipping wharves.
Project title: BC First Nations Collections Digitization
Organization: Museum of Vancouver
Amount: $10,000
Description: This project will digitize artifacts from the Museum’s BC First Nations collections. openMOV
Project title: Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society Historic Photo Collection Digitization Project
Organization: Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society
Amount: $12,500
Description: This project will digitize the historic photo collection of the Society’s Archives, containing unique images of Canada’s West Coast fishing and canning industries from the 1870s to present. Gulf of Georgia Cannery Society Historic Photo Database
Project title: Initiation of online accessibility to Alberni Valley Museum historical photograph collection
Organization: Alberni Valley Museum
Amount: $9,500
Description: This project will digitize the Museum’s historical photograph collection, which documents general community history and gives an overview of Alberni Valley history.
Project title: Canadian Farmworkers Union Project
Organization: Simon Fraser University Library
Amount: $3,390
Description: Based on a representative selection of more than 300 significant items from the complete CFU archival collection, the centrepiece of the project will be a collection of photographs that document the unionization and larger social issues of farmworkers in the late 1970s and 1980s. Canadian Farmworkers Union Collection
Project title: Changes Upstream: Along the Kootenay River North of the 49th Parallel Before and After the Libby Dam, 1969-72
Organization: Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art and History
Amount: $3,000
Description: A selection of black and white images by photographer Stanley G. Triggs form the basis of this project. These photos document the homes, lifestyles and lands of communities along the Kootenay River during the summers of 1969-72. Changes Upstream: The Photographs of Stanley G. Triggs
Project title: Nicola Valley Museum Archives Preliminary Photograph Digitization
Organization: Nicola Valley Museum and Archives
Amount: $3,000
Description: This project will digitize historical photographs, dating to the late 1800s, including material from photographers James Teit and Harry Priest.
Project title: The Mountains Hold our Stories
Organization: Whistler Museum and Archives Society
Amount: $5,000
Description: The Whistler Museum and Archives Society and the Squamish Lil’wat Cultural Centre will digitize a portion of their archival collections for a thematic virtual exhibit that will illustrate how the history and cultures of three distinct peoples was shaped by the unique environment of the Whistler area.
Project title: Prince Rupert Newspaper Project
Organization: Prince Rupert Public Library
Amount: $12,000
Description: The project will digitize issues of the Prince Rupert Daily News and produce a database of searchable images accessible online, starting with the first thirteen years of publishing, from 1911-1924. Turning the Pages: The Prince Rupert Newspaper Archvies
Project title: A Digital Archives of Methodist and United Church of Canada records relating to First Nations of British Columbia
Organization: United Church of Canada Archives
Amount: $14,434
Description: This project will digitize and organize thematically visual and documentary records relating to Methodist and United Church missions to the First Nations of British Columbia.
Up and Down the Coast: Records of Missions to First Nations in British Columbia
Project title: BC Saturday Sunset, 1907-1915 Newspaper Digitization Project
Organization: Vancouver Public Library
Amount: $3,506
Description: This project makes an early BC newspaper, currently available only on microfilm, available in an online web-searchable format accessible remotely and on site. The newspaper provides historical awareness of the issues and concerns of British Columbians at a time of considerable growth and development in the province.
Project title: BC City Directories Digitization Project, 1916-1930
Organization: Vancouver Public Library
Amount: $14,669
Description: This project will build on earlier digitization projects of the directories from 1860-1915, making them available in an online, web-searchable format.
Project title: Audio, Video, Film Digitization
Organization: BC Central Coast Archives, Bella Coola Valley Museum Society
Amount: $2,419
Description: The Archives will digitize its audio and video material, including oral history interviews about the community and tapes and films relating to local history.
Project title: Historic Logging Images of the Northern Vancouver Island Digitization Project
Organization: Campbell River and District Museum and Archives Society
Amount: $6,000
Description: A selection of images related to the history of the unique logging sites and methods in the Northern Vancouver Island region of BC will be digitized and made available online.
Project title: J.S. Matthews Photograph Collection Panorama Digitization Project
Organization: City of Vancouver Archives
Amount: $5,254
Description: This project will digitize panorama negatives and prints from the Archives J.S. Matthews collection, which document the industry, commerce and social history of British Columbia.
Project title: Japanese Canadian Photograph Digitization Project
Organization: Japanese Canadian National Museum
Amount: $10,828
Description: The project will digitize 2000 photographs relating to Japanese Canadian history, ranging in date and subject from early settlements and fishing communities, through the internment years, and through the redress movement of the 1970s and 1980s.
Project title: Langley Advance Historical Photograph Digitization
Organization: Langley Centennial Museum
Amount: $7,150
Description: The region’s oldest newspaper, the Langley Advance, has loaned the Langley Centennial Museum some 2000 photographs dating from 1950 to the 1980s. The project will digitize and upload these to the Museum’s website and, with the help of community volunteers, identify people and places not noted on the photos.
Project title: Jack Shadbolt Digitization and Online Resource Project
Organization: Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery
Amount: $12,407
Description: The Gallery will create born-digital photographs of over 480 of Shadbolt’s drawings, paintings and collages and make them available as an online resource.
Project title: Prince George Newspaper Digitization Project
Organization: Prince George Public Library
Amount: $15,000
Description: This project continues work begun in 2007 to digitize the Prince George Citizen newspaper.
Project title: Salt Spring Island News: The Driftwood, the first decade, 1960-70
Organization: Salt Spring Island Archives
Amount: $4,000
Description: The project will digitize the first ten years, from 1960-1970, of the local newspaper, The Driftwood.
Project title: Abbotsford Living History Project
Organization: The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford
Amount: $5,067
Description: This project will digitize 3000 photos from the Gallery’s collection. Images span the history of Abbotsford since the 1890s and cover a range of subjects such as community events, the flood of 1948, community streetscapes, and First Nations communities.
Project title: British Columbia’s Marine Diversity: A Digital Museum Collection
Organization: Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of British Columbia
Amount: $15,000
Description: The Department has collected and identified an extensive invertebrate specimen library from the coast of British Columbia. The project will archive this diversity and create a digital record that will promote biodiversity knowledge and streamline future research both regionally and globally.
Project title: Elders Council for Parks in British Columbia Video History Collection
Organization: University of Victoria Archives
Amount: $3,000
Description: UVic Archives will digitize 18 video interviews with retired parks system employees and conservation advocates on the history of the BC parks system.
Project title: The Colonial Dispatches 1859
Organization: University of Victoria Libraries
Amount: $10,000
Description: This project builds on earlier work to digitize Vancouver Island and British Columbia dispatches.
Project title: Bill Silver Newspaper Collection
Organization: Vanderhoof Public Library
Amount: $4,500
Description: This project will build on work begun in 2008 to provide a comprehensive database of newspapers from the Vanderhoof, BC area, from the 1920s to the present.
For more information please contact:
Mimi Lam
Coordinator
BC History Digitization Program
bc.historydigitization@ubc.ca
Bronwen Sprout
Head
Digital Programs and Services