Looking back on seven years at the UBC Digitization Centre

The UBC Library Digitization Centre is celebrating another birthday: seven years! In many cultures and religions, seven is a special—and sometimes lucky—number. There are seven continents, seven seas, seven classic world wonders, and seven colors in the rainbow.

For everyone at the Digitization Centre, seven years also marks many proud milestones.

• Over 50 collections
• Over 30 partners and supporters, from UBC, British Columbia, Canada or other countries like China and Japan
• Over 200 thousand unique digital objects
• Over 380 thousand downloads of our items
• Over 8 million views of our collections

Looking back, our first projects were ambitious in their scope, but focused on topics close to home. They included the digitization of BC’s historical newspapers, the Japanese-Canadian newspaper Tairiku Nippo, and UBC Institute of Fisheries Field Records.

The British Columbian, Feb. 6, 1886

Today, our collections provide access to primary sources from all over the world, as well as our many more local communities, including:

• Ancient Artefacts Collection
• World War I British Press Photograph Collection and WWI & WWII Posters
• Western Manuscripts and Early Printed Books
• BC Historical Newspapers, BC Historical Books, and BC Sessional Papers
• Japanese Canadian Photograph Collection
• Chung Collection and Yip Sang Collection
• Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs, and Rosetti Studios – Stanley Park Collection
• UBC Archives Photograph Collection, UBC Archives Audio Recordings Collections, and UBC Publications

Get to know even more histories in our international collections—such as Chinese Rare Books Collection and Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Era—and access Open Collections.

While our collections are accessed mainly by residents of Canada, interest has been growing. In the last year alone, we’ve had visitors to our website from the United States, United Kingdom, China, Japan, India, and other countries.

Google Analytics Map, from Jan. 1, 2017 to Jan. 31, 2018

Our team’s mission is to support and enrich the educational, cultural and economic endeavors of the University, the people of British Columbia and communities beyond. Thanks to the support of our amazing partners here at UBC and throughout the world, as well as the dedication of our many student workers, we have accomplished a phenomenal amount of work and will continue to thrive in that mission.

Thank you all for the past seven years, and the next seven to come!

Sources

Woolman, J. Advancing the digital agenda (UBC Library)

Derbyshire, D. Why ‘lucky 7’ really is the world’s magic number (Daily Mail)

Documentation (UBC Library Digital Initiatives)

Stibravy, R. The UBC Library Digitization Centre: our equipment and its uses (Slideshare)