The Canadian Printer and Publisher magazine, which began in 1892 and is still published (now called the Canadian Printer Magazine), is the national periodical of the printing trade in Canada. This is a seminal periodical in the field as it documents the growth of the printing and publishing trade in Canada during a period of continual technological and commercial change. The periodical covers all of the printing and publishing trade in Canada, including the craft and business of printing, statistics on the trade, discussion of legal issues, reports on union activity, as well as actual samples of the work done by the masters of the trade. Advertisements included in the periodical provide another visual experience documenting the growth of advertising in Canada. At present, only the years 1892 to 1911 are available electronically. There are plans to extend coverage in the future. This project is the initial phase of a larger project to digitize Canada's rich periodical history.
Since printing relies on visuals, having the illustrations is crucial. This periodical collection was scanned in high resolution to ensure the quality of the illustrations and samples of the work. However, recognizing the need to balance these fine quality reproductions with searching and retrieval, the site offers users with three sizes of JPGs – a thumbnail for quick reference, and two others of various sizes for examination and usage.
Searching this site is generally very easy but still in some respects complex. A Quick search box allows the end user to simply type in term(s) for searching. All relevant results are then displayed in ascending date order (the default). Each result entry provides bibliographic information on the results (issue and volume number, as well as date and page number). An indication of the type of result is also presented: advertisement, textual (page), illustration or plate. This provides the end user with a quick reference to the actual results. Simply clicking on an entry will display the full page. The end user is taken to the actual page on which the search terms are found, but from here, the end user can easily browse the full issue by simply clicking on the page numbers found on the bottom of the page. The default display is the scanned version of the page. Search terms are not highlighted; however, there is a “view text” possibility that presents the page in text form with the search term indicated. This aids the end user in quickly and efficiently identifying the search terms in the result.
The search process can be refined. Basic Boolean searching is possible by AND and OR searches. The user can also limit the search to an exact phrase search that is extremely useful for combinations of words. One can also limit results by type of page: text, advertisements, illustrations or plates. This permits the refining of the search process to meet specific needs. The user can also change the order of the results from ascending date to descending dates. I also like the fact that one can browse the actual issues of the periodical. Simply identify the volume and issue for review, and one can quickly and simply browse any specific issue of the journal.
Canada, as with most other nations, is undergoing a major endeavour to collect its rich printed history before it is too late. There are several initiatives to scan and capture early Canadian journals and provide these to for research use. The Canadian Printer and Publisher is a crucial addition to this work.
