Project Naming: what makes it a “good digital collection”?

Abstract

The following is an assessment of Project Naming, which is both a digital collection (workin-progress) and a digital project through Library and Archives Canada (LAC). I shall demonstrate how this collection/project exemplifies the highlevel principles outlined in A Framework for Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections (2006) by the National Information Standards Organization (NISO) in relation to the digital collection development and selection policies theme outlined in our class syllabus. In brief, Project Naming involves digitizing photographs of the Inuit pre-mid-20th century, which were originally snapped by several non-Inuit professional photographers and various federal government-related personnel such as the National Film Board of Canada, Department of National Health and Welfare, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Department of Indian and Northern Affairs (LAC Photo collections). Many of the Inuits portrayed in the photographs were never personally identified—for example, ‘Eskimo playing drum’ taken at ‘Spence Bay’ has been revised through Project Naming to ‘Iharrataittuq Itirujuk, the father of Nilaulaaq Aglukkaq in Taloyoak (formerly Spence Bay), Nunavut’ (LAC Richard Harrington collection: Eskimo playing drum). Before phase-I of the project (2001–2004), these photographs sat quietly in the former National Archives of Canada (now LAC). Several of these photographs were scanned and transferred to CD-ROMs. The CD-ROMs were to be taken up north by Inuit youth to be viewed on laptops by their elders. (LAC Voices from Nunavut: Project Naming: Always on our minds). The collections principles are part of the Framework of Guidance for Building Good Digital Collections (2004), which is a guide rather than a standard or best practice for digital projects/collections to follow especially when applying for funding from granting organizations like the IMLS (Cole 2002). Although it appears that Project Naming has not received funding from the IMLS or the NSF, it is interesting to see how this digital collection/project might have been influenced by these principles (via LAC), which may have contributed to some of the project’s success. In this vein, Project Naming follows collections principle number one in that there is an agreed upon collection development policy created by LAC, which ‘is based on the broad collecting mandate established by the Library and Archives of Canada Act’ (LAC -