Canadiana Discovery Portal

Canadiana Discovery Portal  http://search.canadiana.ca/


Now out of beta, the Canadiana Discovery Portal is a free service that enables users to search across the valuable and diverse digital collections of Canada’s libraries, museums and archives. It provides access to a wealth of digital material such as books, journals, newspapers, government documents, photographs, maps, post cards, sheet music, audio and video files about Canadian heritage.


New content and media types are being added to the Canadiana Discovery Portal. The current contributors to the Portal include some of Canada’s largest libraries, archives, and museums.

The Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, Calgary Public Library, Foreign Affairs & International Trade Canada - Affaires étrangères et Commerce international Canada (DFAIT), Library and Archives Canada - Bibliothèque et Archives Canada (LAC), the National Gallery of Canada, Scholars Portal/University of Toronto, Toronto Public Library, University of Alberta, University of British Columbia, University of Saskatchewan, University of Victoria, and Vancouver Public Library are amongst the current contributors

Content includes such material as: images of cities, towns and other scenery in Alberta, dating from 1900 to the modern era, a collection of DFAIT Press releases and Statements and Speeches from 1949 to 1995,  a rich archive of Manitoba newspapers, with issues dating back to the late 19th century, the Chinese Times daily newspaper, published in Vancouver from 1914 to 1992, the Peel's Prairie Provinces collection (containing an online bibliography of books, pamphlets and other materials related to the development of the Prairies, as well as a searchable full-text collection of many of these items), the British Columbia History Digital Collections, containing historical images, diaries, books, newspapers, audio and video recordings, manuscripts and other publications, and metadata of a collection of approximately 7,000 Colonial Despatches of Vancouver Island and British Columbia from the period 1846-1871.

 
To indicate the breadth of information available, sample searches produce (as of today) 13710 results for "elections", 65 results for "tar sands", and 6960 results for "New Zealand".
 
Sample topics demonstrated include: 20th Century aboriginal-government relations, Ontario genealogy, War of 1812 campaigns, Ontario and the environment and vegetable gardening.