Canadiana.ca website

The website at https:Canadiana.ca provides online access to digitized historical material.

The website is a part of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN).

The website says:

In 2018, CRKN merged with Canadiana.org, an organization dedicated to the preservation and access of Canada’s documentary heritage since 1978. As a merged organization, CRKN continues its core licensing activities for scholarly journal content, while expanding support for the digitization and preservation of, and access to, Canadian heritage content.

Through the services of Canadiana, CRKN is:

Increasing access to the Canadiana collections: Canadiana Online and Héritage
Offering digitization services for CRKN members, stakeholders, partners, and heritage organizations
Expanding the Canadiana collections with in-demand content
Offering preservation services and options through the CRKN Trustworthy Digital Repository (TDR)
Developing the Canadiana preservation and access platforms to meet common standards
Improving metadata and discoverability of the Canadiana collections
Engaging with the stakeholder community to identify opportunities and potential partnerships

We Have Work to Do

Providing access at no charge to the Canadiana collections was an important first step in our assessment and enhancement of the Canadiana collections and our preservation and access platforms. Since starting the project to reproduce early Canadian publications in 1978, and subsequently moving to digital in 1999, we have learned a lot about institutional and historical biases that are demonstrated in curatorial approaches and descriptive metadata.

As we expand access to the Canadiana collections, we also acknowledge that we have work to do, both in terms of assessing the content for appropriate rights assignments, and in decolonizing descriptions, search terms, keywords, and other classifications to ensure that they are culturally sensitive. Under the guidance of the Preservation and Access Committee, we are:

Reviewing digitization priorities and developing guidelines to ensure that we continue to best serve our community
Developing technical enhancement plans to improve user experience and access to content
Expanding our stakeholder community by connecting directly with the end-users of Canadiana content, archivists, researchers, historians, and interested Canadians

We are committed to transparency throughout this process and welcome questions and feedback.
To contact us about the content in the Canadiana collections, including the identification of items that are culturally insensitive or inappropriate, please send an email to: info@crkn.ca.

Copyright

CRKN holds copyright to its collections as a whole. Substantial portions of these collections may not be reproduced or distributed without its express permission. While many of the documents, photographs and other works or subject matter available on this site are in the public domain, this may not always be the case. All users of the site are responsible to ascertain for themselves whether any particular work or other subject matter is protected by copyright and to seek any necessary permission from the copyright owner(s) if they intend to use any such material.