Digitizers’ Blog

Explore Open Collections: German Consulate Fonds
The German Consulate Fonds is a digital collection that was created in partnership with UBC Library Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC). It contains documents from various German Consulates in Canada, dating from 1909 to 1939. The collection contains documents, reports, memoranda, and correspondences from German Consulates in Ottawa, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Toronto, Winnipeg and […]

Explore Open Collections: Yip Sang Collection
Yip Sang was known as the “unofficial mayor” of Chinatown. He was a businessman, political activist and social reformer. Yip Sang, also known as Yip Chun Tien, was born in 1845 in China. In 1864, he left his home village Shengtang, in Guangdong province, to move to San Francisco for work as a dishwasher, cook, […]

Family Day
February 12 is Family Day in British Columbia. While this statutory holiday was created in BC in 2013, falling on the second Monday every February, it has existed in other parts of Canada for even longer. The very first province to observe Family Day as a statutory holiday was Alberta in 1990, when Family Day […]

Winter Olympics
The 2018 Winter Olympics are starting this week! They are going to be hosted by PyeongChang in South Korea, beginning on February 9, 2018. For 16 days, we will see the best winter sports athletes in the world compete for gold. To get into the sportive spirit, we selected a few materials from our collection […]

Explore Open Collections: Rainbow Ranche Collection
The Rainbow Ranche Collection was donated to the Lake Country Museum and Archives by the family of James Goldie. James Goldie (1877-1971) was an owner and resident manager of Rainbow Ranche. Goldie was very engaged in the fruit industry, promoting the concept of central selling. For several years, he was part of the board for […]

A New Year Calls for a New Impact Report!
We are pleased to present the Digitization Centre Impact and Activity Report for 2016-2017! This report highlights the Digitization Centre’s key projects, partnerships and user engagement trends for the 2016-2017 fiscal year. In 2016-2017, Open Collections accounted for 15% of the Library’s unique pageviews. That 15% totals 3.9 million pageviews on Open Collections alone! The […]

Slice of Life: Menus from the Chung Collection
The Chung Collection within Open Collections is known for its variety of photos and subjects. Recently, we took a journey through the menus within the collection- here are a few for your enjoyment: Does anyone know what the first a la carte menu item- “Chow Chow- 15” is? I’d be willing to try […]

Japanese Internment
Japanese Canadian Internment began after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 until 1949. Following the declaration of war on Japan, Japanese nationals and Canadian citizens of Japanese descent were forcibly removed from what was considered to be strategic, restricted coastal areas of British Columbia in 1942. Evacuees were first dispatched to temporary facilities at […]

Costumes in the Collections
It’s decidedly autumn here on the Vancouver campus of UBC. Chilly walks, a desire for soups, and some costume scheming are in the ether. If you’re looking for some inspiration, here are a few from Open Collections. (Pop)Culturally Appropriate, a clown from the Ubyssey: This photo from 1919 is a little far away, […]

Digital Humanities Summer Institute
DHSI – the Digital Humanities Summer Institute – is a humanities training program held every summer at the University of Victoria. Delivered over a week, each course is an intensive series of classes interspersed with colloquiums, unconferences, and other community-based events, and provides an ideal environment for influencing teaching, research, dissemination, creation, and preservation in […]