About the British Colonist Project

The British Colonist digitization project is a gift from the Times Colonist newspaper, the University of Victoria Libraries, and a consortium of British Columbia libraries to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the British Colonist newspaper. Every page of every issue, from the first one on December 11, 1858 until the end of June, 1910, a total of 100,554 pages, have been scanned and made searchable.

The project was enabled when Can West Publications granted permission to reproduce the historic newspaper and provided funding for a legacy to mark this important milestone. Can West have agreed to make this digital version under the following terms:

The digital reproductions on this site are provided to the public, and other researchers who visit this site, for teaching, research consultation and scholarly purposes only. Further distribution and/or any commercial use of the works from this site is strictly forbidden without the permission of the Times-Colonist (CanWest)

The University of Victoria Libraries agreed to contribute resources and create a platform for and host the project. Sponsorships from the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre at the University of British Columbia, The Electronic Library Network of British Columbia; the B.C. Public Library Services Branch (Ministry of Education) and The Greater Victoria Public Library are also gratefully acknowledged.

Commonwealth Microfilming (a division of WestCanadian) in Calgary digitized the newspaper from negative masters of 99 microfilm reels originally shot in the in late 1940's. Their partner, IArchives did the optical character recognition (OCR) and produced the pdf and raw text files. The University of Victoria Library files consist of the archival TIFFS, a raw text file used for indexing, metadata for issue, as well as issue and page level pdfs. All of these files have been transferred to UVic Computing Services for ongoing preservation on tape. Although the OCR is far from perfect it is as about as good as you can get from microfilm and the images are very readable. The Libraries have used the open source SOLR/Lucence engine to do the indexing and to create an interface. We will also continue to look for additional funds to extend the coverage up to the 1920's and to add an educational component. In addition we hope in the future to contribute the full text to the Alouette and West Beyond the West portals and to incorporate existing indexes from the B.C. Archives and VIHistory. All future development will, however, depend on the generosity of donors.

For their initial and ongoing encouragement and enthusiasm, credit should go to Dr. John Lutz (UVic-History), Chris Petter (UVic), and Dave Obee (T-C). Much appreciated help with the sponsorship came from Lucinda Chodan and Peter Baillie (T-C), Chris Hives (Ike Barber) and Leonora Crema, both of UBC; Jacqueline Van Dyk (PLSB); Anita Cocchia (ELN) and Barry Holmes, Ilka Abbott and Lynn Jordan (GVPL). Marnie Swanson and Ken Cooley of UVic were instrumental in UVic's sponsorship. John Durno, UVic Library's Coordinator of IT, managed the development with Maike Dulk doing the original development and Ben Sheaff moving it onto a production server and creating an interface for advanced and chronological searching. Pat Szpak provided the graphics. In addition technical help came from Leslie Field (UBC), Martha Grant (Commonwealth Imaging) and Scott Christensen (IArchvies).

Overall project management was provided by Ken Cooley and Chris Petter of UVic Libraries.

Home Page Photo Credits from top to bottom:

Amor de Cosmos, first publisher and editor of the British Colonist, British Columbia Archives (BCA) G05497
Children from Agnes Cameron, Class BCA B03487
Songhees Chief James Sqwameyuks, 1864-8 RBCM PN04816
Agnes Deans Cameron, c 1910 BCA G04056
Chinese children on Cormorant Street Victoria, detail BCA A5707
James Douglas, Governor of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, BCA A01232

For further information about the project contact Chris Petter at UVic Libraries.