Digitization Project

The General Council Archives, United Church of Canada is currently undertaking a large digitization project focused on digitizing records related to hospital, mission, and day schools in an effort to provide greater access to these records for Indigenous communities and researchers.

The digitization project is the third of a three phased research project to identify and make accessible these important records. The project grew out of the response of Truth and Reconciliation (TRC) Calls to Action (2015), with the express purpose of supporting requests for information from day school survivors.

Timeline

The third phase of three project proposal, which expanded the scope of the project beyond day schools to include hospitals and missions, was approved in December 2021 by The United Church of Canada.

The full project is set to conclude in 2025.

One of the main tasks that will be present throughout all phases of the project is the reviewing and flagging records that will be shipped out for digitization and adding information to help staff identify records when requests come from Indigenous communities and researchers.

Progress updates will be added every few months to keep everyone apprised of the project’s achievements and goals.

November - December 2022

  • The Archives receives files of first shipment of digitized content. This content includes Indigenous language library material.

November 28, 2022

  • Total pages of archival textual material reviewed to date is 48,360.

August 2022

  • The Archives completed a listing of all periodicals in its holding that should be reviewed for relevant information.

July 2022

  • In July 2022, a Digitization Assistant started working with the General Council Archives to help review material for relevance and digitization and input information to aid with the retrieval of the resources.

January - June 2022

  • Staff worked on preparing listing of potential records that were relevant to the project for review. The listings are not static and are continuously added to.
  • In mid-June three boxes of library material were sent out for digitization and are due back at the end of September.

October - December 2021

  • The proposal for the digitization project was prepared and submitted.
  • A listing of potentially relevant library books and pamphlets was created.