Our Roots/Nos Racines is a gateway to Canada's local history, including the cultural and social heritage of the nation, completely in digital format. “Tales to be discovered include those of the Irish at Grosse Isle, the American invasion of 1775, the Klondike Gold Rush, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada's historic forts and trading posts, the Canadian Anti‐Slavery Baptist Association, Aboriginal communities, political and local scandals, ship building in Moncton, and the Sackville telephone exchange”. (About the Project, www.ourroots.ca/e/about1.asp) This site offers a unique perspective of histories written by those living at the time of events: a treasure chest of primary source documents for researchers and students of all ages. The project is a collaboration of nation‐wide libraries, universities, colleges, archives, historical associations, businesses, and individuals with financial support provided by the Canadian Culture Online Program (Canadian Heritage Department). School project ideas and links are provided via the Galileo Education Network (www.galileo.org) with special focus on inquiry‐based learning.
Content provided on this site undergoes rigorous quality control before being accepted and digitized. Only entire collections are included. Selected or partial documents will not be chosen, thus allowing for a comprehensive, non‐fragmented collection overall. While local histories cannot be totally verified as being factual, the personal accounts, opinions, and events offered enrich the quality of information available to researchers on the Web. All selections do go through an editorial board that decides on the definition of “local history” and therefore inclusion. Currently, however, the only reason that a known item would not be included is that a copy cannot be located or copyright permission to digitize cannot be obtained. The project's goal still remains to create “the most comprehensive collection of Canadian local histories possible”. The site includes a wonderful descriptive essay on what local histories are and how to use them in research. While it is difficult to get an idea of the size of this database, over 120 full‐text sources are listed for the province of Ontario alone.
Searching is offered at a basic and advanced level with an interactive map to select local histories from each of the country's provinces. The Advanced search screen allows searchers to focus on title, author and/or subject fields, or search the full text of the digitized pages. A full slate of browse features – title, author or subject – is also available. With the use of a modified Dublin Core record for each item's metadata, subject access is actually very fruitful. Also, due to the involvement of libraries, subject terms are actually often Library of Congress Subject Headings, which allows for quite focused searching. This is a very well thought‐out search facility for all levels of researchers; well done!
Due to the subject content's richness and the excellent search facility provided, I highly recommend Our Roots/Nos Racines to all levels of educational and research facilities dealing with Canadian history. This is one to bookmark and add to your favourite links.
