A captivating collection of projects highlighting the stories and histories of British Columbia will soon be available for online viewing, thanks to the B.C. History Digitization Program (BCHDP).
The program, launched by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre in 2006, provides matching grants to support projects that make B.C. heritage freely accessible to the public via the Internet. This year, about $200,000 in matching funds was allocated for 23 projects throughout the province. In total, the BCHDP has awarded more than $1.4 million for 167 grants over the past eight years.
This year’s highlights include a project to digitize 15,300 photos and postcards from the Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs, dating from the 1850s to the 1950s. Uno and Dianne Langmann recently donated this exceptional collection to UBC Library.
Meanwhile, the B.C. Dairy Historical Society will scan bound volumes of Butter-Fat, a magazine originally published by the the Fraser Valley Milk Producers’ Association. The effort covers issues published from 1923 to 1994 that chronicle the development of dairy history and pioneer families in British Columbia.
Other efforts involve the digitization of more than 11,000 pages of hand-written Chinese language documents at Barkerville, the digital photography of nearly 2,500 fashion accessories at the Museum of Vancouver, the digitization of colonial despatches and provincial newspapers, and much more.
For a map and comprehensive listing of 2014 projects, please visit the Learning Centre’s site.
Top image from a Royal Roads Military College (RRMC) annual photo album; albums were digitized in 2013, thanks to a BDHDP grant and matching funds from the Royal Roads University Military Heritage Committee and the Friends of Hatley Park. For more, please view the albums online.