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The Glengarry County Archives is the largest repository of historical records in eastern Ontario and contains the foremost collection of history about Glengarry County found anywhere.

Incorporated as a municipal corporation in 2013, the archives is the official repository for the records of the Townships of North and South Glengarry municipal governments and is mandated to preserve the records of individuals, businesses and organizations from the settlement period to the present.

In recent years, back issues of two local newspapers were digitized, and are now fully searchable using an instance of our Andornot Discovery Interface. The site is available at https://newspapers.glengarrycountyarchives.ca and includes issues of The Glengarry News from 1892 to 2020 and The Glengarrian from 1887 to 1910.

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Users may search for people, places and events from years past right up to almost the present day. When opening the newspaper issue, search words are highlighted where they appear on each page, to help a user more easily find articles relevant to their search.

Unlike so many of our projects, this site has no database behind the scenes. Rather, the thousands of PDF files are well organized into folders, and the folders and PDF file names convey meaningful information, such as the name of the newspaper and its issue date. From this we are able to construct the metadata you see in search results. Primarily, though, the intention is to provide the best possible full-text search experience of the many articles in each issue.

The site and all newspaper issues are hosted by Andornot.

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The Elgin Country Archives and Museum has used DB/TextWorks to manage their collections for many years, and has long made them searchable online using software from Andornot. They were one of our first clients to rebuild their online search using a responsive web interface that adapts to users screen sizes, from desktop down to mobile.

Now, they've rebuilt their online presence using our Andornot Discovery Interface, to provide the best possible search experience for their community.

The new site is available at https://heritagecollections.elgin.ca and features not only the holdings of the main Elgin County Archives and Museum, but also those of nine other museums physically located within Elgin County, but operating independently. This one-stop search gives the local community excellent access to local history resources.

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Of almost 300,000 records available in https://heritagecollections.elgin.ca, over half feature digital media immediately available online. These are primarily photographs of local people, places and artifacts, but also audio and video recordings, PDFs and, new to this site, very high resolution fire insurance maps. These maps are made very accessible in the site with a zoom feature that allows users to smoothly zoom in to a high level of detail on small areas of the map.

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When searching, features such as spelling corrections and search suggestions, relevancy-ranked results, and facets such as name, place, date, material type and more help user to quickly locate items of interest. Items may be shared on social media, saved and bookmarked, or easily submitted to the museum and archives to request more information, or order photographic reprints.

https://heritagecollections.elgin.ca also features the Disqus commenting system, which allows the local community to engage with other members and museum and archives staff, helping to identify people or places in photographs, correct errors, and discuss the rich history of Elgin county. 

The Kitimat Museum & Archives has thousands of records on human history artifacts and photographic archival collections unique to the Kitimat Valley and surrounding area, including the Douglas Channel.

These records are managed in DB/TextWorks databases, and now, over 30,000 records are searchable through an instance of our Andornot Discovery Interface, at https://collections.kitimatmuseum.ca

Kitimat Museum and Archives Online Collections

Materials at the Kitimat Museum & Archives document the social history of the Kitimat Valley: Haisla (1880s to present), pioneer (1891-1944), and modern (1949 to present), Alcan’s project construction and subsequent history, records, scrapbooks and newsletters of schools, clubs, societies and construction crews, Al Beaton's cartoon books, photographs and records of missionary activity among the Haisla, Haisla dictionary, Missionary newsletter, and records of the Museum.

Some records from the museum's virtual exhibit system, powered by Omeka, are also included in the AnDI site.

New users may explore the collection using pre-created searches, or may search with keywords and refine their results with facets such as names, places, topics and dates. The sophisticated search algorithms in the Andornot Discovery Interface present the most relevant results first. Users may save results to a list, share results and images on social media, and provide feedback to, or request more information from, the museum.

The site is hosted by Andornot with frequent updates by museum staff.

The Cortes Island Museum & Archives preserves unique and original photographs, maps and documents relating to the human and natural history of Cortes Island, British Columbia, and nearby islands. Dating from the late 1800s to the present, their collections illustrate how this remote community of coastal British Columbia responded to changing economic, social and political conditions.

Thanks to a grant from Libraries and Archives Canada, the museum was able to digitize more than 4,000 historic photographs, catalogue them in a DB/TextWorks database using Andornot's Starter Kit for Archives, and then make them publicly searchable in a new site built from our Andornot Discovery Interface.

Cortes Island Museum and Archives

Available at https://collections.cortesmuseum.com, the rich variety of searchable images depicts island people and places, community events, transportation by steamship and floatplane, and economic activities such as farming, fishing and logging.

New users may explore the collection using pre-created searches, such as:

or may search with keywords and refine their results with facets such as names, places, topics and dates. The sophisticated search algorithms in the Andornot Discovery Interface present the most relevant results first. Users may save results to a list, share results and images on social media, and provide feedback to, or request more information from, the museum.

The site is hosted by Andornot with frequent updates by museum staff.

The S.J. McKee Archives at Brandon University houses a wide-ranging collection of unpublished archival records related to the history of Brandon College / Brandon University and the Manitoba Pool Elevators, as well as documenting the history of the City of Brandon and southwestern Manitoba.

A new search engine, based on our Andornot Discovery Interface is now available at https://archives.brandonu.ca. Features such as spelling corrections, relevancy-ranked results, and facets to refine searches, help users to quickly find resources of interest to them.

The site includes over 5,000 digitized photographs, as well records for the Brandon University Art Collection, with images to come for this collection. Oral history recordings will also be added in the future. Behind the scenes, these different types of collections or materials are managed in separate DB/TextWorks databases. This new search interface is thus a huge improvement allowing researchers to easily find all related materials with one search.

"I’ve received only positive feedback about the new interface. People seem to like the design, the simplicity, and the functionality of the site." – Christy Henry, University Archivist

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