Over 60 million pages of Canadian digital documentary heritage will be available to the general public free of charge starting January 1, 2019. Previously, subscription paywalls are needed to access the files. Removal of these paywalls will then allow unimpeded access to the unique historical content from The Canadiana collections, which houses the largest online collection of early textual Canadiana in the world. This means that the vast historical records will be easily accessible to researchers, students, faculty and users in Canada and around the world.
The availability of the collections came as a result of the recent merging of not-for-profit charity Canadiana.org and the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), which is also a not-for-profit partnership comprising over 75 Canadian universities. The partnership was finalized back in early April 2018.
“When our members outlined the vision and goals of a merged organization, ensuring the widespread access to the Canadiana collections was of vital importance. We are proud to have followed through on our commitment to the community in our first year of operations as a merged organization,” says Dr. Alan Shepard, chair of the CRKN Board of Directors and President and Vice-Chancellor of Concordia University.
In a recent news release, University of Waterloo Associate Professor Ian Milligan said, “Historians and digital humanists in Canada and abroad have been working with digitized documentary heritage to explore our history, culture, and identity. The content in the Canadiana collections has been used by researchers for decades. Removing the paywall and thereby increasing access to this essential corpus of Canadian heritage will allow researchers to use tools and technologies to do their work more efficiently and more collaboratively.”
The collection
Currently, the Canadiana collections include three flagship collections—the Heritage, Early Canadiana online, and Canadiana online. Both the Early Canadiana online and Canadiana online collections consist of Canadian periodicals, government publications, monographs, newspapers and even annuals, amounting to over 19 million pages. The Heritage collection on the other hand, includes 900 collections of over 41 million pages of archival materials, including scans of microfilm taken from some of Library and Archives Canada’s (LAC) most sought-after collections. The Heritage collection is developed in partnership with LAC and CRKN.
Of course, the removal of the paywall does not mean that there will no longer be costs needed for the content’s maintenance and development. Currently, CRKN is engaging with stakeholders to further develop digitization priorities, while CRKN members made the commitment to continuously support the ongoing costs for the Canadiana collections.
Moving forward, this new development from Canada will do a lot to further educate Canadians about the rich history of their nation.
(Featured image by DRs Kulturarvsprojekt via Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.0.)
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