The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia announced Monday that 17 projects have been selected as the successful recipients of the 2019-2020 BC History Digitization Program funding awards.
This year’s range of projects includes the digitization of several historical newspapers (Nanaimo, Nelson and Victoria), audio recordings from Co-op Radio, the completion of Museum of Vancouver’s Historical Costume collection, a bilingual newspaper in English and Punjabi, as well as politician Grace McCarthy’s scrapbooks detailing her political career.
Source: University of British Columbia.
The focus of the program is to promote increased access to British Columbia’s historical resources.
Launched in 2006, the program provides matching funds that help libraries, archives, museums and other organizations digitize unique historical items, including images, print and audio visual materials.
Altogether, the BC History Digitization Program has provided more than $1 million for more than 100 projects throughout British Columbia.
Below is a list of successful applicants for 2019 that may help genealogists with their research. The full list is on the UBC website.
Tax and Collector Roll Digitization Project, City of Maple Ridge, $7,500
The Tax Assessment and Collector Roll Digitization project will involve BC Records Management digitizing the tax assessment and collector rolls in the city’s possession from 1875-1945, a total of 32 boxes (approximately 7,500 large format sheets). The original documents will then be stored in their archival facility and the digital files will be available on the city’s website.
Landscapes and Landmarks – Photograph Digitization Initiative, Creston & District Historical & Museum Society, $6,435
The Creston Museum intends to digitize approximately 350 photographs that document the landscapes of the Creston Valley prior to 1935 and 1947.
Vancouver Historical Costume Digitization Project, Phase 3, Museum of Vancouver, $15,000
The Museum of Vancouver holds a significant collection of Vancouver related historical costumes recognized for its quality, size, and breadth of styles and periods represented. MOV has digitized two thirds of the costume collection of outerwear through previous BC History Digitization grants. In Phase 3, MOV will digitize the final third of the outerwear collection (approximately 900 pieces), thereby completing the digitization of this group of artefacts and increasing the public’s access to this popular collection.
Families on the Coast: K&M Boat Works and the Oikawa Island, Nikkei National Museum, $11,410
This digitization project will focus on the Madokoro and Oikawa families who individually made significant contributions to BC’s fishing industry in the early 1900s, survived the unjust treatment during the Second World War, and returned to the coast in the 1950s. In particular, Sajiemon Kuramoto and Jitsuji Madokoro operated the successful K&M Boat Works. In 1906, Jinzaburo Oikawa led skilled fishermen from Japan to Oikawa Island aboard the Suian Maru. The project will digitize 917 photographs, 170 artefacts, and selected high-priority textual records from the total 29.4 cm of textual material, including but not limited to 486 letters and postcards.
Vancouver Japanese United Church Digitization Project, Pacific Mountain Regional Archives, The United Church of Canada, $5,655
This project will digitize 765 photographs and up to 50 selected textual records associated with the Japanese Methodist and United Church missions in British Columbia. Dates cover the years 1897 to 2018; the bulk of the materials dates from 1920 to 1955. The intent of the project is also to build capacity for future digitization of records relating Japanese-Canadian and Chinese-Canadian communities of faith in BC.
Punjabi Patrika Digitization Project, The Reach Gallery Museum Abbotsford, $4,063
The Punjabi Patrika, published in Abbotsford, BC, is one of only two bilingual, Punjabi/English newspapers published in Canada and includes unique perspectives into BC’s South Asian community. An archive of the the Patrika was recently donated to The Reach by owner/publisher Andy Sidhu. The Reach is already the steward of other major newspapers from this region, including those of the Abbotsford Post (1910 – 1924); A, S & M/Abbotsford News (1922 – present) and the Abbotsford Times (1991 – 2008).
Nelson Daily News Digitization Project – Phase 1, Touchstones Nelson: Museum of Art and History, $7,766
The project is to digitize the first 15 years of the Nelson Daily News newspaper from April 1902 to 1917. 60 microfilm master reels of the newspaper will be loaned from BC Archives. The information on these reels will be digitally scanned by the UBC Library Digitization Centre. The digital collection will be hosted on the UBC Historical Newspapers Open Collections website.
Digitization of the Victoria Daily Times newspaper: 1888–1940, University of Victoria Libraries, University of Victoria, $15,000
Published in Victoria, BC, the Victoria Daily Times was the leading rival newspaper to the Daily Colonist in the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia. Alongside their competitors, the Daily Times covered many of the same stories, but sometimes with a radically different political and socio-economic perspective.
The University of Victoria Libraries has already digitized the Daily Colonist newspaper from 1858-1980.
Digitizing the Nanaimo Daily Free Press (1874–1926): Part II, Vancouver Island University Library, Vancouver Island University, $10,000
VIU Library proposes to continue part of its ongoing 2018-2019 BCHDP-funded project, digitizing the Nanaimo Daily Free Press (1874-1928). The scope and nature of this digitization work has revealed itself to be a multi-year project for the remaining 48 reels of microfilm.
VHEC Newsletter Digitization Project, Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, $1,449
The Zachor newsletter of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, and the Vancouver Holocaust Education Society newsletter that came before it, publishes unique writing from Holocaust survivors, their families, centre staff as well as community members, including BC teachers and students. The newsletter includes articles about commemorative events, collection highlights, educational programs and exhibitions developed by the VHEC. Zachor is a foundational publication about Holocaust commemoration and education in British Columbia. At present, issues from 2004 to 2018 are available on their website. The VHEC would like to digitize 60 issues published from 1990-2004, to create a complete digital record of the publication.
