The Vancouver Public Library's Special Collections Division manages a variety of local history collections. Several of these are now searchable through an instance of our Andornot Discovery Interface, at https://localhistory.vpl.ca
The searchable collections include historic photographs, a registry of Vancouver buildings, and an index of newspaper articles related to the history of British Columbia, totalling almost 70,000 records. More information about these collections is provided on the home page of the new site.
Researchers may search by keywords, relying on the advanced algorithms of the search engine to find relevant materials, or start a search by browsing indexes of names, places and topics to view specific items of interest.
All search results may be refined by facets such as material type, date, names of people and places, and more. The 40,000 photographs may all be viewed immediately online, and historic buildings have links to maps and current street views of their locations.
The Delta Museum and Archives, in British Columbia, is a long time user of Inmagic DB/TextWorks software. Their collections were searchable online for many years, but due to technological change, became unavailable for a time. Now, however, thanks to a re-launch of the collections using our Andornot Discovery Interface, they are available once again, at https://archivesmuseum.delta.ca
The collection highlights the development of Delta with its large agricultural and fishing history. Almost 40,000 records are available, including over 12,000 photographs of people, places and historical artifacts, and over 200 oral history recordings.
As with all sites build from our Andornot Discovery Interface, users may browse indexes of names, places and subjects, as well as search by keywords, then refine and sort their search results to arrive at ones of interest. Results may viewed in a list, a table and a gallery of images, and interesting ones added to a selection list for further action or to request more information from staff.
The DB/TextWorks software, databases and the Andornot Discovery Interface site are all hosted by Andornot in our Canadian data centre.
The Sylvan Lake & District Archives collects, preserves and provides access to records that tell the story of Sylvan Lake, Alberta, and the surrounding area.
The archives has been using Inmagic DB/TextWorks software along with the Andornot Archives Starter Kit to manage their archival collections since 2010. The Descriptions database now contains over 8,600 detailed records on the photos and documents in the collection, covering every aspect of life in Sylvan Lake back to the early 1900’s. Over 7,600 of these records include digitized photos and some have multiple photos for a total of over 12,000 images.
In 2022, Andornot assisted the archives with hosting and public access to this excellent local resource. In particular we provided:
- Hosting of DB/TextWorks as part of our managed hosting service, freeing up local IT resources and allowing us to provide immediate and direct support for this software.
- Development of a public search site for the collections from our Andornot Discovery Interface, now available at https://archives.sylvanlake.ca
As with all sites we build from our Andornot Discovery Interface, this site allows non-specialists to easily search and find items of interest, searching by keywords or the names of people and places. Features such as browsable lists of names, topics and places, spelling corrections and search suggestions, relevancy-ranked results, and the ability to narrow a search by facets such as subject, fonds, date, material type and description level all quickly guide users to resources of interest.
Users may immediately view thumbnail images and enlargements, save records to temporary lists and share them with family, friends and on social media, and provide feedback to the archives to help better identify photographs, for example.
Contact us for assistance modernizing your archival collections and making them publicly accessible in an easy to use site.
