Project Alouette Update
Further to my previous post on this, I managed to find out more about Project Alouette – Ted is right, it is part of the Open Canada Digitization Initiative, the name Project Alouette was just announced before Christmas. There is no website as yet.
This is a text of the press release from CARL from November:
COMMUNIQUÉ
CANADA’S RESEARCH LIBRARIES LAUNCH THE OPEN CANADA DIGITIZATION INITIATIVE
OTTAWA – November 17, 2005. Leaders of Canada’s major research libraries held a national summit at Emerald Lake, BC, November 1-3, 2005. The summit outlined plans for online access to Canada’s recorded heritage. At the conclusion the participants declared their commitment to a coordinated and sustained program to digitize Canada’s information and knowledge resources – with 2006 as the catalyst year.
“Our vision is that Canadians will be able to know themselves through their heritage and the world will have the opportunity to better know Canadians” declared CARL President John Teskey. “Our common aim is to provide easy online access to the extraordinary wealth of written and other records by and about Canadians.”
The Emerald Lake participants included members of the library, archives and museum communities. The group strongly endorsed ‘Open Governance’ for the initiative. “Open Governance is a great idea and a major theme” stated Ernie Ingles, Vice-Provost and Chief Librarian, University of Alberta, and the Chair of the CARL Planning Committee. “There will be an open invitation for everyone who is willing and able to come and play their own unique part in developing our collective Canadian online memory. We would like to hear from local history societies, archives organizations, genealogists and others across the country.”
A Steering Committee will guide the overall initiative and coordinate development of an implementation plan for review at the CARL Annual General Meeting in May 2006. One of the first priorities will be to identify “charter” digitization projects to launch the new initiative.
The Open Canada Digitization Initiative will act in concert with the Canadian digital information strategy presently being developed by Library and Archives Canada
CARL calls on governments and funding bodies to support this initiative, to ensure that Canadians will know themselves and that the world will know Canada – now and for generations to come.
CARL is the leadership organization for the Canadian research library community. The Association’s members are the 27 major academic research libraries across Canada, Library and Archives Canada, the Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI) and the Library of Parliament.
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