UBC Library’s investment in digitization is a key part in redefining the vision and mandate of the organization and has triggered new opportunities to support teaching, learning and research at UBC and beyond.
Many of the digitization projects currently underway in the Library’s Digitization Unit are of special importance to British Columbian history. For example, the BC Historical Newspaper Project is the Library’s most heavily used digital collection. Featuring digitized issues of more than 30 BC community newspapers, the portal has been used by staff at Heritage Vancouver to locate missing 1912 Vancouver building permits. As well, staff at Revelstoke Museum and Archives used research information from the collection as part of an exhibition on the history of snow and avalanches.
Another digital collection widely used is the Greater Vancouver Regional District Planning Department Land Use Maps, comprised of 596 detailed maps produced in 1971, 1981 and 1983. These world-class resources are used by UBC students in urban planning and geography and are frequently consulted by the local business community, specifically environmental engineers, site remediation consultants and property development firms.
Earlier this year, the Library partnered with UBC’s Beaty Biodiversity Museum to digitize 11,200 records containing key environmental data on the UBC Fish Collection. This collection, the third-largest of its kind in Canada, features more than 850,000 specimens and more than 50,000 DNA and tissue samples. In the past, the fish data have been used for environmental assessments, conservation efforts, understanding the factors influencing the formation and extinction of species, and more.
These are only a sampling of the projects underway. Digitization of the World War I British Press Photograph Collection and the Tremaine Arkley Croquet Collection are now complete and the Uno Langmann Family Collection of BC Historic Photographs and Greek epigraphic squeezes are in progress, along with many more exciting projects.
To view the Library’s digital collections, please visit digitalcollections.library.ubc.ca.
This story appeared in the Friends 2014 Winter issue.