About Our Roots
Introduction
Have you ever wondered where you could find information about the history of your small town,
rural area or large city, the Acadian migration to the Maritimes, Métis heroes, the Royal Canadian
Mounted Police or the Irish at Grosse Isle in a matter of seconds, in simple searches? Well,
look no further than ourroots.ca, Canada’s Local Histories online, the website that brings Canada’s history to life.
This unique coast-to-coast-to-coast record makes for engaging reading and celebrates the breadth and depth
of our nation’s heritage. Our Roots promotes greater understanding and communication among and within the
cultural groups that have helped build Canada into the nation it is today. Currently, in June 2008, Our
Roots has close to 5500 digital texts with 1.3 million pages of amazing facts about Canadians and Canada
and it is still growing!
Our Roots preserves Canada’s unique identity for future generations through the use of digital technology.
Books that are out of print or only available in distant collections are readily accessible via the internet.
It provides universal access to materials for all ages and not just for reading. There are interactive
educational resources in both French and English for younger students provided by partners Galileo
Educational Network, iXmedia and the Alberta Online Consortium. Scholars, researchers, genealogists
and life-long learners can also view entire books online and take advantage of easy cross collection
searches for family, place names and events. New personalization features include saving your own
collections and adding tags. A map of Canada allows you to target your search to a particular province.
A national network of libraries, universities, colleges, archives, historical associations, businesses
and individuals have generously donated time and copyright permission to have their materials digitized.
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Partners
Our Roots: Led by the Universities of Calgary and Laval, Canada’s Local Histories Online, www.ourroots.ca
is made possible through generous contribution of the Canadian Culture Online program of Canadian Heritage
and the support of partner institutions across Canada.
- Alberta Online Consortium
- Bibliothèque de l'Assemblée nationale du Québec
- Bibliothèque nationale du Québec
- Bibliothèque Paul-Émile-Boulet
- Université du Québec à Chicoutimi
- British Columbia Archives
- Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions/Institut canadien de microreproductions historiques
- Centre d'études acadiennes
- Galileo Educational Network
- Institut canadien de Québec
- Memorial University of Newfoundland
- Library and Archives Canada/Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
- Saskatchewan Provincial Library
- Simon Fraser University
- Université de Moncton
- University of Manitoba Libraries
- University of Saskatchewan Library
- University of Toronto Library
- University of Victoria Library
- University of Winnipeg Library
- Vancouver Public Library
- Numerous individuals, authors and publishers
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Standards
- Project will strive to create the most comprehensive collection of Canadian local histories possible.
- Collection is compiled by subject specialists from across Canada.
- No item is digitized without written consent of the copyright holder unless the item resides
within the public domain. The cleanest copy of each item available is digitized. If marginalia is
present, it will be digitized as well.
- All local history pages within a book, even those that are blank, are digitized to ensure
clients know that nothing has been left out or edited.
- Page edges will be digitized to ensure clients know that nothing has been left out or edited.
- Local histories included in this project are those that have been published or reproduced in print previously.
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Editorial Board
The site has been placed under the imprints of Libraries and Cultural Resources, University of Calgary,
and Laval University Library to clearly demonstrate the involvement of an Editorial Board in vetting
content and addressing content-related issues.
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Policies
Totality: To establish academic rigor and credibility of the site content, only
entire collections will be digitized. The site content will not be 'selected', e.g.,
some items will not be chosen over others by project participants as being more
important to clientele.
The concept of totality assures an academic researcher that no material has been
purposely left off of the site. While each local history may not be regarded as
verifiably factual, taken as a whole collection, a student or researcher will be
introduced to personal stories, opinions and event accounts that they would not
be able to find elsewhere. In terms of Canadian research, the whole, in this case,
may be greater than the sum of its parts. The only reasons that a known item will
not be included on the site are that a copy cannot be located or because copyright
permission to digitize cannot be obtained.
The Our Roots web site will be as transparent as possible. It will be made clear
to clients using the site which organizations were involved in creating the site,
and why content or collections were placed on the web site. While each partner and
node may have a stand-alone site containing the items they have digitized, all items
will be placed on a centralized Our Roots site to ensure coherence of the site in
terms of look and feel, as well as technical and operating standards. This central
site will list all partners, nodes and funders.
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Copyright
Copyright clearance is required for every item placed on the site with the exception
of those local histories in the public domain.
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Technical Standards
Our Roots employs standards consistent with academic and industry practice for
digitization of paper documents. The industry standard TIFF format with LZW compression
is used for high-quality archival digital images. Documents are scanned at original size
at 300 dpi in 8-bit greyscale mode to preserve as much of the original document information
as possible. When documents are in colour, 24-bit RGB scans are made.
As the chosen standard for archiving generates large files, Our Roots uses 4 sizes to
provide on-line delivery to the user: a 200x200 pixel thumbnail for quick reference,
and three sizes (600 pixels high, 768 pixels high and 1000 pixels high) for more detailed
examination and usage. On-line delivery files are created as JPG images at a medium compression
level, balancing onscreen quality with overall size of download.
Our Roots uses a modified Dublin Core record as the basis of its descriptive metadata.
The project has benefited from the work already done by librarians in the item-level cataloguing
of the books that Our Roots has digitized. Where available, descriptive metadata is drawn from
library catalogues such as the National Library of Canada, the University of Calgary library and the
Laval University Library. Items without existing records are catalogued by trained cataloguers following AACR2 rules.
Each item in Our Roots has an index page that provides an interactive table of contents to that
volume. A Dublin Core header will be added to each of these index pages to provide harvesting of
each individual volume.
In addition to the descriptive metadata, administrative and structural metadata are also
added to each item-record. One of the guiding principles for Our Roots is to provide a simple
interface to the resources. Complex client-side scripting and the usage of plug-ins is avoided
where possible. Pages are created using standard XHTML 1.0 Transitional code. The majority of
the scripting and validation occurs at the server level.
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Programming and Scripting Languages
Currently, Our Roots employs ASP.net 3.5 for its server side scripting. Cookies have been
mainly avoided in the past over concerns of privacy and lack of support at the client side
(whether by choice or because of incompatible clients).
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Preservation and Records Management
Our Roots currently uses CD-R technology to store digital files for long term storage and
employs only standard file formats (TIFF, JPEG, HTML) that are open and non-proprietary for
all of its work. CD-Rs are written using standard ISO-9660 format to ensure maximum compatibility.
The general principles that Our Roots employ to ensure long term access to the media is to
create CRC-32 values for individual files and to do spot checks on the media on a regular basis.
Duplicate copies of media are made to store with one on-site and one off-site copy. In addition to
backing up the database information separately, Our Roots plans to save the meta data with the files in
XML format once the template has been developed
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Conditions of Use
Our Roots reminds patrons of current usage policies:
- Patrons may not download, reproduce, alter or transmit files/images without written permission of Our Roots. (It is not in the best interest of patrons to download and repurpose Our Roots files as the files are continuously being updated.)
- Files/images may not be used for commercial purposes
- Files are copyright protected by the original owners and are made available in Our Roots with appropriate permissions
If you are aware of errors or omissions, or if you have questions or comments, please fill in our feedback form .
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