Dear colleagues,
First, we would like to update you on some of our recent progress on the National Heritage Digitization Strategy (NHDS):
Upcoming funding program – Thanks to the generous support of an anonymous donor, we will be launching a funding program in the near future. The program will distribute $1 million to cultural heritage organizations in Canada to support digitization. More information will be available soon.
Newspaper pilot project – The first set of newspapers from our pilot project has been digitized and is available online. In total, we were able to digitize and make available almost 600 issues of Windspeaker and we expect to add another 1000 issues from two other publications soon. The project was made possible with funding from the Salamander Foundation.
Changes to the Steering Committee – Congratulations to Sandra Singh on her new position with the City of Vancouver. We thank her for her inspired contribution as NHDS Chair during the initial phases of this project and wish her the best in her new role.
At the January meeting of the Steering Committee I, Martha Whitehead, Vice-provost (Digital Planning) and University Librarian of Queen’s University, was named as the new chair. I look forward to working with the committee during this exciting period for the NHDS.
The committee would also like to signal other recent changes to its membership including: Maureen Clapperton as the new representative for Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ); and Karen Fudge-Jensen as the new representative for the Royal BC Museum.
You can see a list of the entire Steering Committee on our website.
We also continue to explore collaboration and funding opportunities, test and expand the discovery platform, and work with our international partners on RightsStatements.org.
Now we need your help
“Canada is a multinational country, defined by diversity as much as by common values. This diversity ranges from the language, culture, and self-governance traditions of Canada’s First Nations to the language, cultural, legal, and other traditions of the French and English, as well as successive waves of immigrants and refugees who have added their mother tongues, customs, and perspectives to Canada. As a result, the ‘content’ of the national heritage digitization strategy is diverse and constantly evolving through dialogue among the rich, and sometimes competing, narratives of memory, as well as through the recovery of knowledge that has sometimes languished in the margins.”
(from the draft NHDS Content Strategy)
The NHDS has released a draft content strategy to help guide potential funding projects, a discovery platform and organizational decision-making. We need your help in determining the priorities of the NHDS. Please respond to the following survey by April 6th, 2018.
We invite you to learn more about the NDHS by visiting our planning website.
Warm regards,
Martha Whitehead, Chair
On behalf of the NHDS Steering Committee