An update on the National Heritage Digitization Strategy

In October 2016, Library and Archives Canada hosted the National Heritage Digitization Strategy (NHDS) Foundational Assembly – it was such an inspiring gathering with tremendous experience, expertise, and goodwill. Arising from this assembly, the NHDS Steering Committee has commenced work on further refining a draft action plan and planning for broader community engagement and involvement in the confirmation of the plan and its implementation.

This is intended to provide a brief update to our colleagues across the country – those who were able to attend the Summit and those who were not – on progress since the Foundational Assembly and to invite colleagues with interest in the NHDS to connect with us and – we hope – get involved.

Launch of a planning website

We have launched a planning website to keep you informed of our activities. The site is looking for a more permanent home, but for now it can be accessed at:https://cnhds.wordpress.com/.

Seeking input into the draft action plan

During a recent session at the Ontario Library Association (OLA) Super Conference, members of the Committee presented our draft action plan(https://cnhds.wordpress.com/contact/) . The plan outlines high-level activities to guide the work of the Committee for the next three years.

We are now seeking your thoughts on the plan – What is missing? What particularly excites you? How could the activities outlined in the plan help your organization? How do the directions connect into other digitization partnerships you have?

Action invited: Please share your comments on our planning site or send them to Caitlin Horrall at the NHDS Secretariat caitlin.horrall@canada.ca.

In the future, we will move to more structured approaches to gathering feedback, such as surveys. For now, please bear with us through this start-up phase as we use this unstructured approach.

Most recent meeting of the Steering Committee

The Steering Committee met in Toronto in early February to discuss how to advance the action plan. Minutes of the meeting will be available soon. Minutes from previous Committee meetings can now be accessed on our website. The next meeting of the Steering Committee is being planned for the middle of March.

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We know there is a lot of excitement about a national strategy and we appreciate the patience demonstrated by our colleagues across the country as we have worked to take these very initial steps. Soon, we will share more information about how people and organizations can become involved beyond providing feedback on the draft plan. In the meantime, if you are interested, please do let Caitlin (caitlin.horrall@canada.ca) know what areas you are interested in and we will do our best to hook you into related efforts asap.

Warm regards,
Sandra Singh, Chair

On behalf of the NHDS Steering Committee

https://cnhds.wordpress.com/about/steering-committee-and-secretariat/