Why the Canadiana Discovery Portal is a valuable information resource

Canadiana is encouraging all libraries to include the Canadiana Discovery Portal in their list of information resources for clients.

The Canadiana Discover Portal was created to fill a gap in the accessibility of digital cultural heritage in Canada. Like the EU digital library, “Europeana”, and other national portals, the objective is to offer a central reference point for Canada's digital documentary heritage. This type of digitized material is not always easily accessible through search engines, and in the absence of an aggregation service like the Discovery Portal, users have to visit the website of each institution one at a time to search their digitized collections. The Discovery Portal provides a single access point to numerous collections from across Canada.

 Currently, there are over 40 organizations contributing content to the Portal. These include Library and Archives Canada, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, numerous university libraries, the Calgary, Toronto, and Vancouver public libraries, federal government departments, and the National Gallery of Canada. In addition, approximately 40% of the Canadiana Online collection is available for free through the portal.

Canadiana.org is continually adding new collections and content to the Discovery Portal. In October 2010, the Canadiana Discovery Portal surpassed the 60 million-page mark, providing Canadians with access to more than 880,000 items. The majority of the content available through the portal are digitized books, followed by digital journals. But, the Portal also provides access to over 200,000 images and photos, and small but growing number of audio and video resources.