Daily British Whig 1902-1926 now online

OurDigitalWorld is excited to announce that the Daily British Whig from 1902-1926 is online. The Frontenac Heritage Foundation undertook the project to digitize this significant set of community news, covering the first of the World Wars, and make the papers available as part of the larger Kingston newspaper collection hosted by the Kingston Frontenac Public Library.

With the addition of these almost 90,000 pages, the online Kingston newspaper collection has doubled and now ranges more than 100 years, from 1810-1926. The Digital Kingston VITA Toolkit site at http://vitacollections.ca/digital-kingston/search allows users to search by keyword and facet results to sort or narrow them by date, publication, and more.

Daily British Whig October 9, 1909

OurDigitalWorld worked with Library and Archives Canada via the Canadian Research Knowledge Network to access and digitize the microfilm copies, and with University of Windsor to achieve high quality positional OCR processing. The newspapers are uploaded into the VITA Digital Toolkit for search and display with full text search and hit highlighted results. Frontenac Heritage Foundation member John Grenville used the new primary materials to research a local architect Ernest Beckwith, designer of the Orpheum Theatre in Kingston, and returned very specific results.

ODW, Kingston Frontenac Public Library and the Frontenac Heritage Foundation encourage genealogists, students, and other researchers’ use and exploration of this important set of newspapers. To read the full press release and for contact information regarding the project, click here.

Featured Image courtesy of Maritime History of the Great Lakes Digital collection

Mysterious May!

Any VITA record can have a mystery question associated with it including group and exhibit records!).

It’s easy to promote your mysteries and invite users to answer your questions, add new information, or fill in information gaps about the local history items online…

Learn more about different approaches to adding mysteries and crowdsourcing answers here!

 

Site Refresher Series #1: Banners!

Your banner is on every screen: Excite your site with a brand new look!

We’re sending out a series of “site refresher” tips to help you rebrand and refresh your VITA public site, starting at the top: banners!

Some sites have had the same banner for many years now, and with the new VITA site styling options it’s a good time to update the most prominent graphic on your screens.

What makes a good banner? What tools can you use to create a new graphic? Read more here…

 

 

Spotlight your collections with VITA Exhibits

Creating exhibits can be done from anywhere and is a great way to engage students, volunteers or staff.

It’s easy! Choose your page layouts, then select, describe and link related items from inside and outside your collection. Every exhibit can be modified with a unique style and branding, but they are also featured, linked, and fully searchable within your VITA site.

Exhibits are great for providing context and connections about your collections. Create exhibits that highlight…

or just have fun and tell some stories!

Find out more

Promoting your online newspaper collections

Let’s drive some traffic to your Digital Newspaper Collections!
Who’s looking?

People near and far use online newspaper collections. They are an important resource for researchers, genealogists, students and the curious. Site traffic to online newspaper collections comes mainly from Google, the ODW Search portals and links from your local history web pages and social media threads. Why not reach out more? While you’re working remotely, you can do even more to promote your online newspaper collections!

Follow these tips and download the infographic!

Community Collections and Covid-19

Everywhere you look, the Coronavirus is affecting us. Empty streets, safety precautions, signs of hope and community caremongering – with VITA Toolkit you can invite your community to share their experiences and build today’s local history collections…

Many of our partners are activating their Contribution module to collect stories and photos from their community, including these public libraries: Cook Memorial, Milton, Newmarket, Kawartha, Whitby, and the Cobourg Museum Foundation, among others!

Photo of child with chalk drawing
             Students Spread the Message that Hawthorn Cares

Spring-clean your VITA site with these design resources

It’s spring, and that means spring-cleaning time. If you’re thinking about refresing the look and feel of your VITA Digital Toolkit site, we can help!

Our helpsite has tons of useful resources we’ve written about how to navigate and customize the front-end of VITA. We’ve also added some example resources from other VITA members who have graciously shared templates, posters, event plans, and other documents you can learn from. Continue reading →