BAnQ numérique is the digital portal of the Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec (BAnQ), the library and archives of the Quebec province in Canada. It was launched in October 2015, following the previous digitization initiatives of BAnQ with additional funding from the Quebec Ministry of Culture. It provides access to the digitized resources of BAnQ, including its newspaper collection, as well as books.
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Type of site | Digital library |
|---|---|
| Available in | French |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Owner | Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec |
| URL | numerique |
| Commercial | No |
| Registration | Optional |
| Launched | October 2015 |
| Current status | Online |
History
editThe Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec are the library and archives of the Canadian province of Quebec, established in 2005.[1] The digitization program began in 2003; early digitized titles included the papers La Minerve, La Patrie and Le Petit Journal.[2] As of 2015, BAnQ, which had nearly 6000 papers in their collection, had digitized 248.[2]
Following the adoption of the Plan culturel numérique du Québec in September 2014, BAnQ increased its efforts to offer its services online with a 5.25 million grant from the Quebec Ministry of Culture. The BAnQ numérique portal was created to assist in ease of access to its collection, aimed to be more user friendly than previous offerings.[1][2] The director of the archives described her goal with the project, saying: "I dream of a digital BAnQ, a great cathedral of digital knowledge, like Gallica but more advanced."[1][3][4]
The platform was officially launched in October 2015.[5] As of April 2019 it averaged 9,879 sessions a day; during the COVID-19 pandemic, visits to the site increased by 45%.[5]
Features
editBAnQ numérique collects and standardizes access to all of BAnQ's digitized services, including its digitized archives.[5][6] In 2015, this included 3 million documents, and 11 million pages of digitized material.[3] In digitizing its notary archives, they collaborated with genealogy companies Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.[5] It was proposed that the public be allowed to edit the optical character recognition data, to correct errors that come from the automatic process.[2] In spring 2019, it began to utilize Creative Commons licenses and other to inform its users of the licensing requirements on works, following the identification of many puiblic domain works in its collection; this followed the release of 100,000 of its digitized documents into the public domain.[5][7]
In offering access to old newspapers they have reached copyright agreements with their publishers.[8] In digitizing one paper, La Terre de chez nous, it took 210 hours to digitize 155,000 pages, though in that case the paper had already been transferred to microfilm, which is easier to digitize.[8] Newspapers have optical character recognition, which allows for keyword searching. In deciding what newspapers to prioritize inclusion of in the archives, considered factors are how many users have requested its inclusion and its historical and regional importance.[8] The portal can be used to borrow books as well as read digitized papers.[3] Borrowing books from the BAnQ numérique is done through a third party service, Pretnumerique.ca, a service which formed out of a collaboration between BAnQ and several other organizations.[9] All periodical data is stored on a BAnQ server.[8]
References
edit- ^ a b c Lalonde, Catherine (19 November 2014). "Faire éclater les murs de la bibliothèque" [Breaking down library walls]. Le Devoir (in Canadian French). Montreal. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- ^ a b c d Baillargeon, Stéphane (6 June 2015). "BAnQ de données" [BAnQ of data]. Le Devoir (in Canadian French). Montreal. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- ^ a b c Blais, Marie-Christine (6 May 2015). "Grande Bibliothèque: le troisième lieu" [Grande Bibliothèque: the third place]. La Presse (in Canadian French). Montreal. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- ^ Lalonde, Catherine (3 June 2021). "Le tournant numérique, toujours une priorité" [The digital revolution, still a priority]. Le Devoir (in Canadian French). Montreal. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- ^ a b c d e Brisson, Estelle; Morel, Sophie; Roy, Julie (2022). "La référence et l'aide aux usagers aux Archives nationales du Québec : regard sur un service en constante évolution" [Reference and user assistance at the Archives nationales du Québec: a look at a constantly evolving service]. Archives (in Canadian French). 50 (1): 31–52. doi:10.7202/1092322ar. ISSN 0044-9423 – via Érudit.
- ^ Côté, Sophie; Leclerc, Marc-André (2022). "Évolution des Archives nationales du Québec et de leur rôle dans un contexte technologique et informationnel exigeant : de 1983 à 2021" [Evolution of the Archives nationales du Québec and their role in a demanding technological and informational context: from 1983 to 2021]. Archives (in Canadian French). 50 (1): 53–71. doi:10.7202/1092323ar. ISSN 0044-9423 – via Érudit.
- ^ "BAnQ permet la libre utilisation de plus de 100 000 documents patrimoniaux du domaine public numérisés et diffusés sur son portail Web" [BAnQ allows free use of over 100,000 digitized public domain heritage documents on its Web portal]. Gouvernement du Québec (in Canadian French). 13 May 2019. Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- ^ a b c d Blackburn, Patricia (24 May 2024). "Les archives de La Terre de chez nous accessibles à tous" [La Terre de chez nous archives available to all]. La Terre de chez nous (in Canadian French). Retrieved 3 August 2024.
- ^ Breault, Sylvie-Josée; Breton, Maryse; Fortin, Antoine; Gamache-Vaillancourt, Geneviève (2021). "Le livre numérique : quelques millions de prêts plus tard" [Digital books: a few million loans later]. Documentation et bibliothèques (in Canadian French). 67 (2): 5–12. doi:10.7202/1076994ar. ISSN 0315-2340 – via Érudit.
Further reading
edit- Crevier, Isabelle (2020). Stratégie numérique de BAnQ 2021-2028 : le savoir et la culture pour tous, partout et en tout temps [BAnQ's digital strategy 2021-2028: knowledge and culture for everyone, everywhere, anytime] (Report) (in Canadian French). Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. Retrieved 3 August 2024 – via BAnQ numérique.
- Rapport annuel d'activités 2021-2022 [Annual report 2021-2022] (Report) (in Canadian French). Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec. 28 July 2022. ISSN 2560-9912. Retrieved 3 August 2024 – via BAnQ numérique.
- Lapointe, Marie-Claude; Pelbois, Christelle; Luckerhoff, Jason (6 May 2021). "Le livre numérique en bibliothèque au Québec : regards des bibliothécaires" [Digital books in Quebec libraries: librarians' views]. Documentation et bibliothèques (in Canadian French). 67 (2): 13–26. doi:10.7202/1076995ar. ISSN 2291-8949 – via Érudit.
- Lemay, Yvon; Klein, Anne; Winand, Annaëlle; Côté-Lapointe, Simon; Yoakim, William (March 2021). "Archivistique et numérique" [Digital archiving]. Notes de recherche 3 (in Canadian French) – via Papyrus.