Stirrings at LAC

Nothing stirs within the Public Service, with an embargo declared on announcements, during a General Election. That season of winter-like dormancy has come to an end. James Moore has been reappointed as Minister of Canadian Heritage.

Just as bulbs springing to life herald Spring there are sign of new life at LAC.

First, crocuses, together with the National Capital Commission, LAC on Thursday announced Portraits in the Street: Political Culture installation in the heart of Canada's Capital. This outdoor installation, in Ottawa's Lowertown, offers "an opportunity to explore the connections between the nation's politics and its artists, performers and writers." View the press release at http://goo.gl/0eV2N

Second, daffodils, a Maps, Charts and Architectural Plans finding guide.

Third, tulips, Archives Image Search is introduced as a prototype tool that allows searching for digital images of archival material in the holdings of Library and Archives Canada (LAC). A thumbnail for each search result helps you identify records of interest quickly and efficiently. Images refers to all digital copies of documents, such as photographs, works of art, maps, textual material, stamps, etc. This prototype only searches the following fields: Name, Document Title and Location. Future iterations will search more fields and more collections.

With the new season and these signs of life, can we look forward to blooms in profusion from LAC? Remember the online resources promised for this year as recently as December 7?

"Over the next year, LAC will double the volume of its on-line content, mounting millions of genealogy images on its website in partnership with Ancestry.ca. For example, by 2011, Canadians will be able to access digitized images of original census documents from 1861 and 1871"

"By 2011, Canadians will be able to access the entire contents of the National Union Catalogue, representing more than 30 million entries, using popular on-line search engines."

Or perhaps you remember the promise, blogged here on 22 January, about the WW1 service file I had digitized using LAC's digitization on demand service, and the information that:

"there are no impediments to the file ordered being linked, that will happen with all full CEF files requested, and these constitute about a third of all digitization requests. The time frame to get the process in operation will be weeks to a few months." 

Weeks have come and gone, now four months later, the item has not been linked.

I'm looking forward to smelling the roses!