Bytown Museum
Digitization has given this photo of Canada Day in 1867 a new life online.While museums everywhere compete with readily available online sources for audiences interested in history, a number of Ottawa museums have been catching up by making their collections available online.
Centretown’s Bytown Museum is working to improve public access by digitizing even more of its collections. But there’s still a long way to go in the process, and the museum is looking for funding to move on to the next stage, says collections and exhibitions manager Grant Vogl.
“Public access is a huge thing for us. We want to share our collection with the public, and we can only do so many exhibitions,” Vogl said.
The digitization project began about two years ago, posting the first batch of the collection last March, according to Ottawa Museum Network communications officer Tracie Labonté.
“Most people expect to find collections online,” Labonté said. “It’s where they go.”
These digitized items are available on the City of Ottawa’s website, along with the City of Ottawa Archives, and collections from seven other Ottawa museums.
The Bytown Museum’s project started when it received two provincial grants that allowed it to purchase a scanner and a computer to begin digitizing the collection in 2013. The project cost $50,000, with the two grants covering half and the museum covering the other, Vogl says.
Vogl and archivist Saara Mortensen were scheduled to speak at a museum event on Sept. 24 about the importance of making collections available digitally.
While 2,500 items have been scanned, roughly another 2,500 prints, photos, and drawings which wouldn’t fit on the scanner, and another 5,000 3D artifacts still need to be photographed and digitized, Vogl estimated. Of the few 3D items already available in the digital collection is a bust of Lieutenant-Colonel John By, the military engineer who founded “Bytown,” the future Ottawa, in 1826.
One of the major benefits of digitizing museum collections is protecting them from damage, Labonté said, citing the fire that broke out at Quebec City’s Museum of Civilization last year as an example. Remarkably, nothing was destroyed in the fire, but the scare was enough to warrant attention from other Canadian museums.
Museums aren’t the first public information resource to move online for better public access. The Ottawa Public Library has been growing its collection of ebooks, audiobooks, and downloadable music since 2004, according to OPL division manager for programs and services Monique Brûlé.
Consumers are becoming format agnostic, Brûlé observes. “What they want to see is the content, regardless of which format.”
Similarly, Vogl isn’t concerned about the museum’s digital collections hurting attendance. Hopefully, he says, consumers will see the collections online, which will motivate them to visit the museum in person.
Digitizing the collections are how museums can stay relevant, adds Labonté. “If you can’t find it online, it doesn’t exist. By digitizing their collections, museums are better able to respond to what people are looking for.”