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The little collection that could: building an online index to historical photos

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Ruth Millar*
Affiliation:
Saskatoon Public Library, 311 23rd Street East, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7H OXO, Canada
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Abstract

Sweeping technological changes took place a decade ago in the Local History Room of the Saskatoon Public Library that now allow customized online searches of its photograph collection of 50,000 images. The Room was established in 1966 to collect and preserve materials relating to the history of the Saskatoon area. The Saskatoon Public Library’s photo indexing project began in 1987 and recent forays into digitization and the Internet have heightened access to the collection. Staff now receive enquiries from around the world.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 1999

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References

Note

Special libraries sections of library associations, and archivists, are well organized in Canada and there is a visual resources curators’ listserv and group (chiefly for slide librarians). I have not polled all my Canadian counterparts, but in my communications with them I’ve never encountered any listservs or special interest group specifically for local history librarians. I’d like to see local history rooms and collections in Canadian libraries (especially those with photo collections) get organized, establish their own organization, listserv and newsletter.

Contact the author to obtain a list of local history collections across Canada, with postal addresses, email addresses and URLs. At time of writing, this list was a work in progress, and not necessarily comprehensive.