News Release
What's New
Library and Archives Canada launches Web product featuring Canada's Inuit
people
Ottawa, October 8, 2004 - Today, Library and Archives Canada is launching
the trilingual Web product Project Naming at www.collectionscanada.ca/inuit/index.html
in English, French and Inuktitut.
Project Naming is a Web site and searchable database containing evocative
images from the photographic collections of Library and Archives Canada. The
people in these images from Canada's Nunavut region have recently been identified,
and their stories have been rediscovered. In addition, the site explores the
history, language and culture of the Inuit people portrayed.
Research for Project Naming began in 2001 with the selection and scanning
of photographs. The next stage involved youth travelling across Nunavut showing
Elders these photographs on laptop computers. The people in the images were
then "named" by the Elders and the new information was added to the
Library and Archives Canada photographic database. Through Project Naming,
hundreds of Nunavut residents who were photographed between the 1920s and the
1950s have been identified.
For many Elders, viewing the Project Naming photographs was their first
time seeing images of certain family members. For the youth, it offered the
chance of seeing a photograph of a deceased relative, and of learning about
their past. The "naming" of the people in these photographs is time
sensitive; today's Elders may be the last people left to identify these individuals,
whose names might otherwise remain lost forever.
Project Naming connects Inuit youth with Elders and bridges the cultural
differences and geographic distances between Nunavut and the more southern parts
of Canada. It is an ongoing initiative and through continued research, its goal
is to identify all those in the database photographs.
"This Web product is the culmination of several years of collaboration
among the Inuit people, the Nunavut Sivuniksavut, the Government of Nunavut
and Library and Archives Canada. Canadians are fortunate to have this valuable
resource. A big thanks must go out to the people of Nunavut for their dedication
and participation throughout this project," said Ian E. Wilson, Librarian
and Archivist of Canada.
The Honourable Peter Irnik, Commissioner of Nunavut stated, "It has been
rewarding for our youth to connect with our Elders in this new way. By adding
names to the photographs of our ancestors, our people have also been able to
reclaim their past."
This initiative is the result of a collaboration between Library and Archives
Canada, the Nunavut Sivuniksavut Training Program in Ottawa and the Government
of Nunavut Department of Culture, Language, Elders and Youth (CLEY). Funding
for Project Naming was provided by CLEY. Funding for the Web site was
made available through the Memory Fund of the Canadian Culture Online Program,
Department of Canadian Heritage.
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For more information:
Louisa Coates
Media Relations, Library and Archives Canada
Telephone: 613-992-9361 / cell: 613-295-5516
E-mail: media@lac-bac.gc.ca
For historical information visit:
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