Hot off the press it’s the 2019-2020 Digitization Centre Impact Report!
This report highlights key activities of the Digitization Centre over the past year including: new and highlighted collections, software enhancements and upgrades, and user engagement statistics.
With over 219,000 users accessing Open Collections, engagement grew substantially from last year’s 190,000 visitors. While the majority of users continue to be from Canada and especially British Columbia, there is substantial engagement from outside of British Columbia and internationally.
New additions to Open Collections include:
The Nelson Daily News (featured in a recent blog post): Published between 1902 and 1980, phase I of this project makes available 5598 editions of the newspaper from 1902 to 1920.
Interim Forest Cover Series Maps: Produced from the first-ever systematic inventory of British Columbia’s forests conducted from 1951-1957, these maps are a much-used source of information on timber resources in the province. Very cool looking collection as well.
Pedestal: This Vancouver feminist periodical was published between 1969 and 1976 and was digitized in partnership with SFU Archives and the Vancouver Women’s Caucus.
Other honourable mentions:
Improvements to Open Collections: Search and indexing features were upgraded to facilitate users’ ability to filter and sort their search results.
Additions to the Harry Hawthorn Fly Fishing Collection: As much as the idea of fly-fishing might make you yawn, this collection features many items dating back to the 1700s, offering a unique historical perspective on more than just fishing.
Web Archiving: Major additions to UBC’s web archiving portal on Archive-it include updates to the Trans-Mountain Pipeline collection and the collection related to the Site C Dam.
Digital Asset Management System (DAMS) Project: Though it may bore the average user to tears, we have been working hard in preparation for changing our legacy content management system to DSpace 7. While we made excellent progress last year, there is still much to do.
Thanks for checking this out and if you want more details, remember to read the report!
n.b. featured image from the RBSC Bookplates Collection.
