Community Digitization Project
Our Ontario is partnering with more than 30 public libraries and 20 other community organizations from across Ontario to implement the Community Digitization Project (CDP). This unique initiative is provided to Ontarians with funds made available from the $15-million grant to Southern Ontario Library Services and Ontario Library Services North from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in 2008.
This is a large-scale digitization project that is designed to build a base of knowledge in public libraries of digitization techniques and best practices to make cultural heritage collections available and discoverable online using the Our Ontario software, toolkit, and existing support services. The project will run from August 2009 to December 2011.
The purpose of the CDP is to strategically develop digitized content about and from Ontario and to build up digitization programs within the public library sector in Ontario, with the objectives of
1) increasing the amount of digitized content and online access to Ontario’s historical, cultural and community content, and
2) building capacity for digitization programs within public libraries. These initiatives will augment and extend existing digitization services and funding opportunities in Ontario.
Each CDP partnership consists of one or more public libraries, as well as other organizations including historical societies, museums, archives, and other community organizations. As part of the CDP, each partnership receives in-house expertise and training from an assigned Digitization Facilitator as well as digitization and record creation services from one or more Digitization Assistants. Each partnership is provided with digitization hardware and software. Partnership organizations will have access to the Our Ontario toolkit, VITA, which includes web-based software and web site for the creation, management, hosting and display of digital collections online. CDP partners’ library staff will leverage these resources and in-house expertise to enable and educate their partner organizations to digitize and manage online collections.
CDP Partnerships on a map
Subscribe to the CDP: Notes From the Field newsletters
See our press release and more press from the CDP Partnerships