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FOSA update Nov.13

From time-to-time we welcome the input from our friend the Interim Gopher, Bill Armstrong, of the Friends of Saskatchewan Archives (FoSA) in contributing stories and additional insights to "Outside the Box."

"Greetings, FOSA-ites. One of the ways the Friends assist the Provincial Archives is gathering information from photos held in the Archives' row of file cabinets at the Hillsdale location in Regina. This information is then entered into the database that accompanies the photo when it is digitized, giving viewers more information and context about the photo.

The gopher stumbled across an article about a project to digitize the mammoth collection of the New York Times, with help from google. http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/11/the-new-york-times-is-digitizing-more-than-5-million-photos-dating-back-to-the-1800s/

In place of Google, the Friends have stalwart volunteers, primarily Helen Morrison and Lynn McCaslin. At the recent From the Prairies to the Trenches event the gopher heard that with a spiffy new widget soon powering the Archives website and other bits and pieces, staff - and later, volunteers - will have to receive training on the new system. 

Regarding all of the news coverage regarding the Armistice that ended World War I, it's worth noting that the lion's share of the words, images, newsreel footage and the like came from ... archives. One item that caught the gopher's eye was an article in Legion magazine, regarding the liberation of the Netherland in 1944-45, in which more than 7,600 Canadian troops died. I learned that there is a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion in the Netherlands, which is working with representatives of three war cemeteries where Canadian troops are buried, to develop a bilingual website where they hope to archive the names, photographs and life stories of all Canadians who died during the liberation campaign. The foundation running the project is looking for volunteers and family members in Canada who have photos and information to share about soldiers who fought in this campaign.

Here is a link to the Legion branch Facebook page, if you would like to make contact: 

You can also make contact with folks who look after the three cemeteries directly:

Bergen op Zoom: info@stichtingbbw.nl


Holten: info@canadese-begraafplaatsholten.nl


-- 
Bill Armstrong
interim gopher
Friends of the Saskatchewan Archives

Regina, Saskatchewan,   
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