31 March 2008

Online collection of pamphlets and broadsides

I recently was made aware of an interesting collection of online published material, some of which is specifically relevant to Canadian military history. The managers of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto have placed online "Canadian Pamphlets and Broadsides: Pre-1930 Canadian pamphlets and broadsides from the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library (http://link.library.utoronto.ca/broadsides/index.cfm).

As the main page notes: "This site provides access to the pre-1930 Canadian pamphlet and broadside holdings of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library by supplying both page images in full colour, and full searchability of the contents of each item. To date the site consists of 597 broadsides (single sheets, printed on one or both sides) and 2062 pamphlet titles which amounts to 71508 page images. Additional titles will be added on a regular basis. The collection includes items printed in Canada, by Canadian authors, or about Canadian subjects, mainly of a non-literary nature."

A quick review of the collection - visitors can search the collection by specific words or browse it based on subjects - shows quite a few items of interest to students of Canadian military history. Three examples include: J.D. Craig (comp.), "The 1st Canadian Division in the battles of 1918" (London, 1919); G.E. Hewitt, "The story of the Twenty-Eighth (North-West) Battalion, 1914-1917" (London, 19?); and Henry Charles Fletcher, "Memorandum on the militia system of Canada" (Ottawa, 1873). In each of these cases, the images of the publication are available in "small", "medium" and "large" formats, each of which can be captured as a downloadable JPG graphic.

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