Portals to the Past at Your Library (Part 1).

Whether your interest is in exploring local history or delving into your own family tree, your library is the perfect place to experience how new technology and historical information meet to provide access to the treasures of the past.

The newest addition to the Petawawa Public Library’s roster of online databases is our Digital Heritage Collection. Using any computer with an Internet connection, you can examine documents, view photographs and listen to recorded interviews that bring the history of Petawawa to life!

Find out what it was like to be a young schoolteacher back in the day. Admire the fashions of the young men and women of yesteryear. Browse the assessment rolls to see if you can find your own family name and what kinds of jobs people held once upon a time.

As a Community Digitization Project, the Digital Heritage Collection needs help from the community (that includes you) in order to best reflect the history of Petawawa. Kathryn Schoutsen is coordinating this effort at the Petawawa Public Library. She will scan your historical photos and documents, catalogue them and add them to the publicly accessible collection. A “Digitization Day”, for this purpose, will be held at the library in August. For more information, contact Kathryn at 613-687-2227 or pplcdpda@gmail.com.

You can find a link to the Digital Heritage Collection on this blog (see the sidebar on the right of your screen), on our website, on Facebook, or just by clicking here. You might even stumble upon it simply by going online and “googling” something local and historical. You’ll never know until you try!

(The Community Digitization Project is a project of Our Ontario, a service of Knowledge Ontario, in partnership with OLS-North and SOLS. The project is being funded by the Ontario Ministry of Culture's $15 million investment in public libraries through SOLS in collaboration with OLS-North).

The next post will describe the technology available at the library for exploring your family tree.

(In the photo: Mrs. August Gutzman, nee Frederika Heinze).