Clearinghouse of Professional Information

Digital Collections

This section includes links to information on digitizing collections, and links to actual digital collection in Ontario.

Topics include

General Resources |  Ontario collections

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General Resources

• Buildings, books, and bytes: libraries and communities in the digital age. Published by Benton Foundation in November 1996, at the request of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the report reveals what library leaders and the public think about the future of libraries in the digital age.
• Creating and Documenting Electronic Texts: A Guide to Good Practice (UK) All you  need to know all about digitization
• Going Digital: issues in digitization for public libraries UK Networked Services Policy Task Group.
• Guidelines for Digitization Projects: for collections and holdings in the public domain, particularly those held by libraries and archives (IFLA) March 2002
• Inventory of Canadian Digital Initiatives (Library and Archives Canada)
• Learning Internet Resources. Many of the resources on this page are "open access". Includes free books, free course materials, academic databases, free journal articles, digital libraries, specialized search engines, subject guides, technical reports, theses and dissertations
• Library and Archives Canada – “On Our Website” section includes links to the materials and collections which have been digitized by staff at the Library and Archives Canada
• Local Places, Global Connections Libraries in the Digital Age: Benton Foundation report focuses on how libraries are coping with the use of new technologies to maintain their role as society's primary information providers, what challenges they are facing, and who is doing a good job.
• Visual Resources Online  Digital images of primary materials on public Web sites

 Ontario collections

• Burlington Public Library Local History and Genealogy  databases includes the HALINET Local History Index  (Halton Hills) and the Halton's Historical and Newspaper Records: A Searchable Database

• Canada's Digital Collections / Les collections numérisées du Canada
• Dionne Quints:  digitized historical information about the Dionne Quintuplets, including a timeline, digital collections, and information about the museums and libraries owning the original artifacts.( North Bay)
• Early Canadiana Online: a project to provide enhanced access to Canada's published heritage (NLC)
• Local History Database. (Fort Erie Public Library). Part of their Local History Collections
• From Pennsylvania to Waterloo ( Waterloo Regional Library) A record of over 1000 Mennonite families who moved from Pennsylvania to Ontario, starting in 1800. Digitization of Ezra Eby's two volume book "A Biographical History of Waterloo Township". Plus documents, photographs, maps and pictures of six pioneer families
• Gateway to Northwestern Ontario History is the Thunder Bay Public Library's digitization site. This project won the Ontario Historical Society's 2002 Dorothy Duncan Award for outstanding service to the region. The site includes photos, books, drawings and artifacts from Thunder Bay and the Northwestern Ontario region. The project has focused on themes such as logging, mining and the railway. 
• Historic Niagara Digital Collections The Digital Collections website is a comprehensive index of selected resources available in the Local History Collection at the Niagara Falls Public Library including: the  Newspaper Index  to selected headlines and names from Niagara newspapers from 1905 to the present; an  Image Database  including photographs, postcards, negatives, daguerreotypes and digital images of selected print material; a Local History References Database with references to various forms of print material in the Local History Collection; a Name Finding Aid to find common variations and search for names that 'sound the same'; a Local History Collection Catalogue to search the catalogue of the Local History Collection
• Huron District Assessment Rolls (Huron County Library)
• iCity - Historic Sites of Walkerville The Windsor Public Library received the CLA/Information Today Award for Innovative Technology for its "iCity - Historic Sites of Walkerville" project. ICity is a website that uses sophisticated Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software to track over time the changing history, geography, and architecture of the historic Walkerville district of Windsor.
• Kanata Timeline History Website (an initiative of the former Kanata Public Library -now the Ottawa Public Library)
• Local History Collections. (Fort Erie Public Library).
• Niagara Falls Public Library. Newspaper Index. This database currently indexes birth, death, marriage, and anniversary notices, and Niagara Falls related news articles that have appeared in the Daily Record, the Evening Review, and the Review since 1908. 
• The Royal Henley Regatta Database (from the St. Catharines Public Library)
• Toronto Public Library Digital Collections
• Reuben R. Sallows Digital Library (Huron County Library System)  The virtual home to Canada’s largest collection of images created by historic photographic pioneer Reuben Sallows. It was created to provide centralized access to geographically dispersed collections of R.R. Sallows’ work, increase public awareness of Ontario’s agricultural history, promote and encourage appreciation of Sallows’ photography, and to make it available throughout the province, the country and around the world.
• Welland Public Library Local History Resources. This site includes a database of Cemetery and Genealogy records for Welland and Welland County as well as a history of the Welland Canal.  It is a joint project with the Wainfleet Public Library.
• Windsor Public Library Digital Exhibits   (Windsor Public Library)