Archives learns valuable lessons about online content through digitization

The federal government is anxious to put Canada’s history online as quickly as possible, but issues like copyright and displaying material online could place serious limits on how quickly the job gets done, and the scope of the projects. The government’s Canadian Cultural Digital Content Initiative has put $2.5 million per year for three years in the hands of the National Archives to begin the massive job of digitizing its vast holdings. The latest project by the archives – a retrospective on the life of Quebec filmmaker and actor Gratien Gélinas to be launched next week – is illustrative of the challenges Canada’s depository for original historical documents faces. While the virtual exhibit will consist of 250 items online, the actual collection has 5000 items and 200 hours of audio-visual material that the Archives lacks the resources to post. In all, the Archives has around 120 kilometers of textual records (when the boxes are placed end to end), some two million photographs and 300,000 hours of AV programming, says Brian Carey, communications director for the institution and head of the team responsible for the digitization effort. The goal is to put the collection online where academics, its traditional audience, and now ordinary Canadians can peruse it. But staff say that challenges exist beyond finding time to digitize the artefacts. Technological concerns are the least of their worries, according to Carey and colleague Denise Rioux, acting chief of the communication product section. While finding more server storage and digitizing equipment remain a problem, the new challenges are finding ways to present material to an online audience, clear copyright and approach the task of indexing and create finding aids — including standardized item descriptors. Rioux says the cost of mounting exhibitions nearly doubles when it has an online component, and that each project requires a new set of writers and designers in addition to the actual digitization. Compounding the unique challenges faced by the Archives is the white-glove treatment required by most items in the collection which can limit the amount of light shone on them during digital photography, for example. "The staff hasn’t changed," says Rioux. "It’s a balancing act. We’re in year two and we’ve learned a lot in the past year and we’re trying to develop our teams to work on the different projects and bringing in our multi-disciplinary team… Digitization isn’t something you can do like photocopying. It’s a shift." Both note that staff generally support the various digitization projects which began in earnest around four years ago with the registration records of World War One’s Canadian Expeditionary Force. Rioux and Carey say the increased visibility is welcome, and the Archives has been able to broaden its audience for Canadian history. "It’s a counterpoint to what Jack Granastein was saying. Instead of asking who killed Canadian history, it’s here; it’s alive and it’s in the Archives – history in the first person." Industry Canada and Canada Post as financial partners Industry Canada has been a consistent partner, funding staff to digitize the various content through its SchoolNet project, and official funding has been in place since the October 1999 Speech from the Throne. Though officials won’t say, it’s likely further funding could be channeled to the institution if a multimillion dollar funding package requested by Canadian Heritage in a draft Innovation White Paper comes to fruition (see story in this issue). In keeping with the overall direction of Heritage’s new media strategy, exhibitions are created with francophone content to boost its representation on the ‘Net. Canada Post has also come on board as a partner. This summer, the two institutions will launch a philatelic site with 2,500 stamps issued since 1851 (5000 items in total) digitized and put online as a result of a three-year partnership.

Archives learns valuable lessons about online content through digitization

News | 05/31/2001 4:00 am EDT

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