Collections News

Thanks to a donation from the Department of Art and Design, we were able to digitize 315 theses and make them available in the University of Alberta Thesis collection that had never been online before.

This collection was unique as it varied in format, including video tapes, slides, and print. For us, it represented the first time that we incorporated multiple formats into the same item. Slides and AV were digitized by off-site vendor, JEET Video; while print was digitized by Internet Archive at their facility at RCRF. Each formats had to uploaded as separate digital objects So a search for “Koichi Yamamoto printmaking thesis” will give you both the text and the slides. Different formats are also linked by the “Associated_material” metadata field in a record.

Based on conversations with the Department of Art and Design, we learned theses are frequently consulted by students at the recommendation of their teachers. Now that they are online, it’s even easier for them to look up inspiration from the faculties past. Additionally, we acquired over 400 items as donations that would otherwise have been discarded, after their reading room closed, including titles that are completely unique.

For now, you can search for theses within the larger University of Alberta Thesis collection (e.g. search for “Master of Visual Arts”, “Master of Fine Arts”, or “Department of Art and Design” ). In future, we hope to enrich the metadata and add Department-level sorting. Additionally, to use the catalogue to combine items with multiple formats.

Do you know of any professors or administrators who might have questions about thesis digitization for their department? Do you know of any students or alums seeking theses from the past? Please direct them to email digitization@ualberta.ca!

From Kara Blizzard: Breaking news from the past: The Dagligtale, Augustana’s student newspaper, is now online! Explore over 40 years of student voices and campus life, spanning from 1978 to 2020, in the newly digitized archive.

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A big thanks to Kara Blizzard, this project’s liaison, for identifiying this gap in our online collection & helping us to locate all of the copies for digitization. If you are considering proposing a digitization project and want to know what is involved as a project liaison, you can read up on the role in our Library digitization strategy.

The Dagligtale is part of the growing Peel’s Prairie Provinces collection which includes other University of Alberta publications like student newspapers The Gateway (1910-2016) and Poundmaker (1972-1974) and institutional publications like Folio (1964-2014), The Trail (1920-1941), and The New Trail (1942-2006).

From Jean Blackburn, COPPUL Executive Director:

On behalf of the Indigenous Knowledges Standing Committee, I am pleased to invite you to a special presentation on Thursday, October 30: LSSAP and the Saskatchewan Indigenous Storytelling Month Project.

Please join Jessica Genereaux, Coordinator of the Library Services for Saskatchewan Aboriginal Peoples (LSSAP) Saskatchewan Indigenous Storytelling Project, and Lindsay Baker, Community Services Librarian at Wapiti Regional Library and Chair of LSSAP, as they share a history of the creation and work of the Library Services for Saskatchewan Aboriginal Peoples committee, and the evolution and function of the Saskatchewan Indigenous Storytelling Month Project.

When: Thursday, October 30,  10:00 – 11:30am MDT

Where: Zoom – please register to receive a link.

The University of Toronto Press (UTP) recently made an agreement with EBSCO to distribute most of the Press’s journals exclusively via EBSCO databases, effective January 1, 2026. This affects the journals for which we currently have UTP-direct subscriptions.

The main impact of this change for UAL is that we will no longer collect new issues of two (2) UTP journals. This is because the only way to do so is to pay for expensive EBSCO database upgrades, which is not justifiable given current budget constraints.

In the context of our UAL collection, there are seven (7) journals affected.

Journals where current access to new issues will continue (with the relevant EBSCO database indicated):

1. Calico (Education Research Complete)
2. Canadian Journal of Communication (Communication & Mass Media Complete)
3. Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality (CINAHL Plus with Full Text)
4. East Asian Pragmatics (Communications & Mass Media Complete)
5. Physiotherapy Canada (CINAHL Plus with Full Text)

Journals whose new contents, January 1 onward, we will no longer have access to:

1. Journal of Veterinary Medical Education (available through CAB Abstracts with Full Text; we have CAB Abstracts)
2. Sociolinguistic Studies (available through MLA with Full Text; we have MLA International Bibliography)

Articles published January 1 onward in these two journals will need to be requested via ILL.

Curious about Halloween in Edmonton in 1944? You can now search the *expanded* Edmonton Bulletin (1880-1951) collection and find out!

The scope of The Edmonton Bulletin Newspapers collection (initially available on the Peel’s Prairie provinces website up to 1923) has been expanded by 28 years. The publication range available on the Internet Archive now spans 1880-1951.

First published as The Bulletin in 1880, this newspaper has undergone numerous title changes.

This collection brings together all the variant titles of the Edmonton Bulletin allowing for seamless searching across the years.

• The Bulletin (1880-1881): 25 digitized issues.
• Edmonton Bulletin (1881-1902): 1,647 digitized issues, transitioning from weekly to semi-weekly.
• Daily Edmonton Bulletin (1903-1906): 905 digitized issues, published daily except Sunday.
• Edmonton Daily Bulletin (1906-1907): 354 digitized issues.
• The Edmonton Bulletin (1907): 15 digitized issues.
• The Edmonton Daily Bulletin (1907-1915): 2,675 digitized issues, often with special editions.
• The Morning Bulletin (1915-1924): 2,522 digitized issues.
• The Edmonton Bulletin (1924-1951): Digitized issues continuing daily publication until 1951.

Historical newspaper collections are a great resource for Alberta historians and journalists interested in the evolution of historical newspapers. And, of course, for anyone interested in local history!

More detailed information about individual titles within this collection, including specific numbering irregularities and suspensions, is available on the Peel’s Prairie Provinces newspaper page. More historic Edmonton newspapers are linked from the library’s Newpapers guide.