Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Tweedsmuir Histories.

Over the holidays I am once again volunteering at the Dufferin County Museum and Archives (DCMA). During the past week I was exposed to their collection of Tweedsmuir History Books. This is not the first time I have come across the Tweedsmuir collection, however I am once again amazed at what a great source of local history these books are. Put together by the local Women's Institute the books chronicle all major events that occurred in the region in a scrapbook fashion.

After spending sometime thinking about what a great source these books were I began to wish more of them were digitally accessible. At this point none of the DCMA's Tweedsmuir Books are digitized. However I did discover that Simcoe County (which is right next to Dufferin County) has digitized their collection of Tweedsmuir Books. The digitized copies are available free of charge online, and each book has a brief blurb highlighting the local names mentioned in it. The only downside being that a good portion of the Books are a bit blurry, they are still readable but I'm sure looking over them for hours might cause a pretty bad headache. Another little neat fact about Simcoe County's digitization project is that initially the all digitization of the local history was done by two students who were paid by a LibraryNet grant (hurray for student employment?!)

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