The LancasterHistory online Research Collections provides searchable access to nearly 300,000 items from their historic collections, from library books and archival documents to photographs and three-dimensional objects.

LancasterHistory is also proud to announce the launch of the James Buchanan Presidential Library, which provides online access, for the first time, to the papers of 15th United States President James Buchanan and his family.

This collection includes  more than 3,500 items associated with James Buchanan, Harriet Lane, and James Buchanan Henry, extended family members, associates, and Wheatland, Buchanan's home. Scholars and researchers can search and view the digitized collection to examine the events that transpired during Buchanan’s presidency and gain a better understanding of how the United States responded to one of the most fraught periods in American history.

The LancasterHistory Research Collections site is powered by our Andornot Discovery Interface, which provides features such as automatic spelling corrections, intuitive search suggestions, and refinable search filters.

Data in the site is sourced and regularly updated from a variety of back-end systems: PastPerfect for archival descriptions, artifacts and photographs, and MARC records exported from their library’s cataloguing system. Andornot developed systems to transform each different data source into a common format and index it in our Andornot Discovery Interface, for searching across all collections, while still preserving the metadata unique to each record and data source.

The full text of many linked digital documents is indexed, to further expand search options.

Searching across all LancasterHistory collections previously required many separate searches, using different search strategies and tools. Now, with all resources in a single site, searching is faster and easier and reveals more records to users with every search.

As the site is hosted by Andornot, there’s nothing for LancasterHistory staff to do or worry about, and they can add new data as often as they like.

Visit the site at https://collections.lancasterhistory.org

As Archives and Museums have had to close due to COVID 19 or are operating with reduced hours and access, it has become more important than ever to maintain visibility and value by providing more resources and information online.

There are still some grants available to help with the cost, and reassuringly the LAC DHCP program funding for 2020-21 has gone through and we are working with recipients on their projects.  There is also a new initiative, the Canada Emergency Support Fund for Heritage Organizations from Heritage Canada which has a submission deadline of  September 1, 2020.   The BC Museums Association and similar organizations in other provinces, provide listings of grants that are available.  We can provide assistance with writing proposals to take advantage of these funding opportunities and always have suggestions for projects that might fit into a grant application, or be feasible if you have any budget available.

Many of the grants are for digitization initiatives as these are one of the best ways of ensuring better access to items in your collections.  As part of the digitization program there is often the option to enhance your web search interface, which is where we can help.  We can work with all sorts of data without necessarily changing your underlying workflow and have you up and running with a modern, very functional site very quickly.  For clients who already have at least part of their collections online using our systems, we are suggesting some relatively simple enhancements such as adding commenting to digitized photos to allow more community involvement.  Take a look at a typical record with comment from Bulkley Valley Museum or from La Société historique de Saint-Boniface.  All comments are moderated before they are displayed which does take some work, but it is also a good opportunity to connect directly with your users.

Another option that is popular with people stuck at home and looking for something useful and interesting to occupy them, is crowdsourcing the transcription of various historical documents. We recommend these be based around a theme such as World War I diaries, or letters from a particular fond or on a selected topic. We can set up a site  using From the Page software (https://fromthepage.com/) where clients can upload handwritten digital documents for transcribing.  Apparently there is a surge in interest in this type of project - see this recent article How to Help Librarians and Archivists From Your Living Room. If you’re cooped-up and curious, use your free time to decipher handwriting, tag images, and more.

If you already have digitized content which is not yet available online, we have various options that might not be as costly or as time consuming as you might think!   We can extract metadata from a file structure or we can index the full text of documents to provide search capabilities immediately.  Maybe items have already been digitized by someone else?  Have you looked in the Internet Archive for items relevant to your collection?  Many of these are available for non commercial use and can be incorporated into your own systems quickly and easily.  Or do you have data in other repositories or software that we can integrate to add value?

Please let us know if you might be interested in learning more, or have any other good ideas that we can help you with!

Every spring of Andornot's 25 year history, we pack our bags and our marketing materials and start travelling across the country to attend library, archival and museum conferences, to learn what's new, and to meet, greet and mingle with colleagues, clients and old friends. Like all of you, our suitcases are still in the closet, hoping for use again soon.

Despite the strange turn of events this year, we still believe strongly in the value of conferences and other professional development activities, and were pleased earlier this year to award our annual Professional Development Grant for 2020 to Lucie Handley-Girard, Archivist at The ArQuives, Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives. Lucie had intended to use the grant to join us in Vancouver at the Association of Canadian Archivists’ annual conference. We hope that before too long, we can resume meeting you in person, and continue to sponsor conferences and other activities.

In the meantime, check out Lucie’s work on The ArQuives online collections at https://arquives.andornot.com

The Widener University Archives collects, preserves, and provides access to print and digital materials such as papers, photographs, publications, audiovisual items and memorabilia related to the history of Widener University, in Pennsylvania, and its predecessor institutions.

A separate, more specific archive, the Sexuality Archives, contains the pamphlets, papers, newsletters, books, journals and audiovisual materials related to the history of Sexuality, Sexology and Sexuality Education as well as Widener's Human Sexuality program.

Both of these collections are now searchable online using Andornot's Discovery Interface at

• https://widenerarchives.org
• https://widenersexualityarchives.org

With a graphic design that matches the university's branding, and features such as spelling corrections, relevancy-ranked results, and facets such as Subject, Name, and Decade to narrow results, these sites help researchers quickly locate materials of interest.

Andornot worked with archives staff to upgrade their older DB/TextWorks databases to use our Archives Starter Kit, create new databases from Excel spreadsheets, and clean up some of the data, before developing the new web search interfaces and retiring previous ones. Both web search engines are hosted by Andornot.

The Arnprior and McNab/Braeside Archives, just outside Ottawa, has hosted their website and online archival collections and exhibits with Andornot for many years. Each year, their online presence has grown with newly digitized resources and new exhibits about their area.

In 2020, thanks to a Library and Archives Canada Documentary Heritage Communities Program grant, they were able to:

• upgrade their version of our Andornot Discovery Interface to the latest version, with features such as a rotating carousel of images on the home page, full text search of linked PDFs, and a "More Like This" option to find related resources;
• digitize an extensive array of new materials, including 40-50 large format maps, and display those maps in search results using our image zooming feature;
• create a new DB/TextWorks database of local historic landmarks and places abd add a mapping feature to the site to allow users to explore these;
• upgrade the Umbraco content management system that powers the non-search portion of the site and add a blog feature to keep fresh content flowing more easily; and
• refresh the graphic design of their website with a new, modern look.

These enhancements join content added in recent years such as:

• a digitized newspaper collection to 1937
• birth, marriage and death abstracts to 1934
• Town of Arnprior Bylaws (1960 to 2014, with 1970 onwards searchable)
• McNab Township Bylaws (1846 to 1950, browsable only)

The ongoing enhancements and new content added to the Arnprior and McNab/Braeside Archives website and search engine help researchers and residents of the area to better explore their local history.

"I want to thank Jonathan, Peter, and Kathy for all your hard work on this project. It is very, very much appreciated. The new website is what we have been hoping for since we first launched it a number of years ago. And the extra features give us much greater flexibility in the future. And we are very pleased you were able to add the ability to search across the pdfs within this project. Thanks for your patience as you explained things to us and guided us through the project."
-- Irene Robillard, President, Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives.

Earlier blog posts about Andornot's work with the Arnprior & McNab/Braeside Archives:

• Addition of digitized newspapers to the Arnprior Archives’ search interface
• Arnprior Archives' Virtual Exhibit: 150 Years of Living Off the Land