The
McCord Museum launches Keys to History,
bringing Canadian
history to your fingertips
Montreal,
Thursday, May 15, 2003 — Today the McCord Museum
launches Keys to History, a dynamic Web resource
designed for the Canadian history buff in all of us. Drawing
upon images and information from leading Canadian historical
institutions, Keys to History offers thematic virtual
tours that highlight intriguing aspects of Canada's past and
enable visitors to see Canadian history in a whole new light.
Hosted
on the McCord Museum's Web site, Keys to History (www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/keys)
encompasses a database of over 60,000 digital images from the
collections of the McCord Museum and its partners, the New
Brunswick Museum and the Musée acadien of the Université de
Moncton. The digital medium offers users a rare glimpse of
artifacts, artworks, photographs and manuscripts that might
otherwise be inaccessible to museum visitors.
The
star feature of Keys to History is a series of
fascinating Thematic Tours created by historians and museum
curators. These Tours provide insight into major events in
Canadian history and aspects of daily life that shaped the
Canadian experience, with tour topics such as the aftermath of
the Rebellions of 1837-1838, the Klondike gold rush,
19th-century patent medicines and "miracle cures,"
and the advent of mass consumption and advertising in Canada.
For
those inspired to become historians and curators themselves,
the Database Research function allows users to search through
over 60,000 digital images of artifacts in order to create his
or her own thematic tour. These tours can be saved and shared
with others, making Keys to History a truly user-driven
virtual museum environment. Conceptual Browsing, on the other
hand, offers an entirely different way of exploring the
databases. With an innovative interface, this function
encourages users to view artifacts and images in relation to
each other and their historical context. Additional plans are
in the works to enrich Keys to History with digitized
images from institutions across Canada and extend the Thematic
Tours' time period to end in 1945.
Part
of the McCord's EduWeb
Keys
to History
is part of the McCord Museum's groundbreaking EduWeb, a
collection of bilingual learning tools accessible free of
charge on the Museum's Web site (www.mccord-museum.qc.ca).
With Keys to History, the McCord adds a resource for
members of the general public who wish to gain a fresh
understanding of Canadian history.
Spearheaded
by the McCord Museum under the leadership of Dr Nicole Vallières,
the McCord's Director of Collection and Information
Management, and her research team, Keys to History was
made possible through a generous grant from Heritage Canada,
and further aided by in-kind support from Sygraf Inc and Sono
design.
Source
and information:
Nike
Langevin
(514) 398-7100, ext. 251
We
acknowledge the financial support of the Department of
Canadian Heritage