Wednesday, April 27, 2022
This week marks a University of Waterloo Library (Library) milestone: the Waterloo Digital Library (WDL), an online repository used for sharing select items from Special Collections & Archives (SCA) and the University of Waterloo Archives (UWA), is officially five years old![1]
Since the site’s launch, the WDL has been used to share a growing selection of digitized primary resources from SCA and UWA holdings to enhance online access and improve the research experience.
This Waterloo Digital Library(WDL) promotional card features a photo from 1966 of librarian Ching-chih Chen standing in front of open book, assisting students in the library stacks. The photo [66-2409_005] is part of the Kitchener-Waterloo Photographic Negative Collection images on the WDL
How have things changed?
Over the past five years, the number of items available for viewing on the WDL has expanded to more than 4,000 ranging from photographs and motion pictures to ephemera and periodicals. Content has been pulled from a variety of thematic areas,[2] with a special focus on local history, women’s studies, and the history of the University of Waterloo; combined these three collecting areas generate the most interest from on- and off-campus researchers.
The WDL has also been used to improve the viewing experience of items that were previously on the SCA website such as local souvenir albums, letters from early German settlers, and suffragette postcards.
What is new?
- The Bettie Bernice Wilson collection documents the experiences of enlistees in the Women’s Division of the Royal Canadian Airforce during the Second World War.
- The offerings from the Dominion Rubber Company fonds have been expanded to include additional photos of the Albert Kahn designed factory (that still stands at 101 Glasgow Street in Kitchener) and promotional videos that include a tire being test driven after being dropped from a helicopter and performance scenarios featuring road spikes and axe heads.
- The Schneider family collection consists of material relating to descendants of Johann Christoph and Anna Elizabeth Schneider, their families, friends, and activities including J. M. Schneider (founder of Schneider Foods) and Norman C. Schneider (former Liberal member of parliament).
- Items from the UWA have been added to expand offerings related to the campus history, library happenings, and student activities. They include topical file ephemera, From the Library Office, and Faculty of Engineering graduate course listings from 1969-1972.
What comes next?
Over the next few years, the WDL will be undergoing a technical makeover to improve its functionality and reliability. Now is the time to let us know what you like, or do not, about the current site using the WDL contact us form. Your feedback will help the WDL support team best meet the needs of site users like you.
[1] Campus communications about the WDL rolled out in February of 2018, but a test version of the site quietly launched on April 25, 2017.
[2] You can read more about SCA’s thematic areas on the Archives Database.
