Historical Photographs and Other Digitized Resources at the VPL VPL #5236. Philip Timms photo - Granville at West Hastings, , Vancouver, B.C. 1908

Why Digitize?

1. Preservation Why Digitize? Preservation – protection of material; reduces handling of original negatives, many of our negatives are glass, deteriorating acetates, etc. Accessibility – permits patrons to view the images from outside the library: increases awareness; able to view proper image rather than just negative (only 20% of our 80,000 accessioned images are available in print/photocopy format.) Searching – limited to card files accessible only in the department and with only a few access points. Keyword searching with Boolean operators would make searching easier and more efficient. Expectations: increasingly, public expect images to be available online. Many institutions are going this route: e.g. CVA, Glenbow. VPL# 6729. Philip Timms photograph. Dupont St (now East Pender), Vancouver, B.C. , 1907

2. Accessibility VPL # 6232. Leonard Frank photo. Crowded deck of Komagata Maru, Vancouver, B.C. 1914

“To Male Enemy Aliens”, Vancouver, B.C.1942 3. Expectations VPL#1343. Province Newspaper photo. Japanese Men Reading the Evacuation notice “To Male Enemy Aliens”, Vancouver, B.C.1942

Issues to consider when choosing a collection to digitize: coherence & size of collection copyright issues preservation funding (e.g. Vancouver's Golden Years CPR project ) Choosing collection to digitize. - Important historical content; popular with the public, availability elsewhere. size of collection: manageable size – not too overwhelming Copyright: either VPL owns copyright or images in public domain. If neither is the case, then digitizing creates problems: no right to post to the web if copyright owned by someone else; by posting on the web images can be downloaded by anyone – infringement of copyright. Web issues: even if VPL has copyright we scan JPEGs at 72dpi – low resolution so that any download is no better than a good photocopy. This we we control use. Preservation: digitizing helps preserve material, cuts down on the need to view original images, provides another medium for storage namely CDs. Unfortunately longterm stability of CDs have not been tested. We save two copies of each TIF file to two separate CDs (high quality, 2 different makes) and have instituted a yearly check of the CDS. Last check had one CD corrupted; using the uncorrupted CD we made another copy. The optimum would be to save a copy of each file to 2 separate CDs and to a hard drive. Unfortunately, because of the size of each TIF file we cannot save to hard drive. Until technology improves we will continue to use CDs. It is possible that DVDs are more stable, so this might be a further option. Funding – we are driven to some extent by who will give us money. Government agencies often have their own requirements, e.g. Vancouver Golden Years – we had to tailor the project to meet the requirements of Industry Canada for digitization projects that dealt with inner cities. Interestingly for the next grant application process they had removed any subject requirement. An easier pitch for us was when applying to CPR for support – we obviously had to come up with some pretty pictures of trains etc!

Accession Book Accession Book When the images were initially accessioned they were listed in the accession book. Accession number, place of image, brief description, date of image, and format: whether glass negative, copy negative, print, etc was all that was listed. Over time photographers initials have sometimes been added, and also if any additional formats have been created, e.g. a copy negative.

Shelf List Card – Front & Back The cards, which were created when the images were initially accessioned, list the photographer, if known, the date of creation of the image, if known, a description of the content of the image and the accession number. The reverse side lists the subject headings assigned to each image. For each subject heading there will exist a card. The subject headings are from an authority list created for the historical photographs and reflect local Vancouver/BC headings. They do not conform to Library of Congress subject headings.

Entry Form for #4705

Record # 4705 cont’d

Record # 4705 cont’d

Search Interface Historical Photos Simple Search Interface

Benefits to the Organization Accessibility – web vs. in-house Search flexibility – Boolean operators, subject headings as links Preservation – archival images stored on CDs to protect originals Promotes the history of our communities Revenue – broader audience and more photograph orders The increase in accessibility is noticeable in the fact that remote users can access the collection. The availability of some of the images on the web has raised expectations whetting the appetite of the public for more. Searching is far more efficient: keyword searching, use of Boolean, linked subject headings, etc. Preservation – CD- technology new and untried over extended periods – needs careful monitoring Promotes the history of our communities – demonstrates the contributions of all groups to the growth of BC and Vancouver. Provides a record of our past – helps to explain how we are what we are and how we got here Revenue: mixed reviews as to whether this has increased – more awareness, yet also easy to download.

Future Projects Historical Photographs - ongoing BC Index Chinese-Canadian Genealogy website City Directories – digitization of text BC Then & Now – potential gateway Historical Photos – see page about the various projects - search “Japanese Evacuation”; BC Index – link to BC Index – talk about rationale, e.g. BC Index continuation of the NW card index which was closed in 1998, journals indexed include The Midden, Okanagan Historical Report as well as book analytics and obits from Sun and Province. We also index material pertinent to BC to be found in local newspapers, e.g. Westender - - not indexed elsewhere in electronic resources. Do search for Head tax to show range and output. Chinese-Canadian Genealogy website – an initiative that came out of History Librarian Janet Tompkin’s work on chinese genealogy research in BC. Working with the Chinese community, Janet created this well-reviewed website, which gives detailed information on the resources available and on how to start researching chinese genealogy. Phase II of this website is being worked on with LAC and will be released shortly. City Directories – currently, our comprehensive collection of BC directories is available only on microformat or in print. We are exploring possibilities of making at least some of these available digitally. Many issues to consider – not least copyright and cost. TPL– has digitised their early directories (and are about to make more available - up to 1923). They describe the digitised directories as “the all time popular online resource” BC Then & Now - aim is to look at important records in NW card index and other files and indexes to be found in various VPL divisions that enhance our knowledge of BC and to create a database on BC – provisional name is: BC Then and Now. This will be a gateway to the BC index as well as to historical photograph database, chinese-genealogy website, digitised city directories etc..