September 30, 2003

Dictionary of Canadian Biography

Dictionary of Canadian Biography goes online with licensing deal by Jessica Whiteside, University of Toronto (Aug 25)

"U of T and Université Laval, joint producers of the DCB, have signed a licensing agreement giving the federal Department of Canadian Heritage the right to publish the first 14 volumes of the dictionary online. The government will pay a licensing fee of $1.6 million over the two-year contract —"

Posted by Gwen at 01:31 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 27, 2003

Sympatico / MSN

Sympatico.ca and MSN.ca will be combining their resources to create a new portal for launch in 2004.

Bell Canada/Microsoft alliance may create Internet juggernaut Gartner Dataquest via TechRepublic (Sept 11)

"On 16 June 2003, Bell Canada and Microsoft announced a strategic five-year agreement in which Bell Canada's Sympatico.ca and Microsoft's MSN.ca will be combined to create a new cobranded portal to be launched in 2004. Also, the alliance of companies will provide a broad range of content and connectivity services initially based on Microsoft's recently launched MSN8."

Bell Canada will manage the content, english and french, and MSN will provide the infrastructure. The MSN8 service will be part of the offering but might be an additional cost to Sympatico subscribers. Gartner Dataquest in its analysis thought it likely MSN8 would be bundled for free with the premium high speed service ($69.95 / month) but not the other subscription packages.

Posted by Gwen at 02:14 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

Canada at War

Canada War Museum has a searchable database of 144,000 newspaper articles from the Hamilton Spectator 1939-45.

http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/newspapers/index.html

Posted by Gwen at 01:43 AM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 26, 2003

Canada.com to charge

CanWest will charge readers to access newspapers online. Ottawa Citizen. (Sep 19)

CanWest will start charging readers of its 11 online newspapers through Canada.com starting in November. "Asper said forcing readers to pay is justified by the fact that the portal gets about 120 million page views per month. "

Posted by Gwen at 02:27 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 18, 2003

Growth in internet use slowing

Internet use growth rate dips Globe and Mail Update (Sept 18)

"In 2002, an estimated 7.5 million households had at least one member who used the Internet regularly, either from home, work, school, a public library or another location, up 4 per cent from 2001 -- far below the gains of 19 per cent in 2001 and 24 per cent the year before."

- British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario are heavier users of the Internet.
- 51% of households used online banking
- 64% of households looked for health or medical information
- 57% connected to a government site

Posted by Gwen at 06:03 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 17, 2003

High speed connections

Canadians connect at high speed Rank third highest in Internet linkage by Dave Ebner. Globe and Mail Technology (Sep 17)

"Canada had 11.2 high-speed Internet connections for every 100 residents in 2002, the Geneva-based ITU said in a report issued yesterday. The country ranks third behind South Korea, which had 21.3 connections for every 100 people, and Hong Kong, which had 14.9 connections for every 100".

Posted by Gwen at 02:37 PM Permalink | Comments (1)

September 12, 2003

Macleans Books

Macleans has a new section online for books -- http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/index.jsp. Has the bestseller lists, interviews, reviews, and literary events calendar. Macleans.ca is also inviting readers to submit recommendations for book of the month.

Posted by Gwen at 02:59 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 11, 2003

Law Online

Free, upgraded Web data boon to lawyers, public by Michael Geist. The Toronto Star (Sep 8)

Recommends several sources on the Internet for legal decisions. For Canada these were Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII), http://www.canlii.org, and Supreme Court of Canada, http://www.scc-csc.gc.ca.

Posted by Gwen at 12:37 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 10, 2003

First Voices

Heritage Web site gets boost Canadian Press (Sept 9)

"First Voices, a First Nations Internet-based archive recording the province's rapidly disappearing aboriginal languages, was given a near million-dollar boost Monday by Heritage Minister Sheila Copps."

First Voices is a group of web-based tools and services to be used for archiving aboriginal languages. It is based in British Columbia.


Posted by Gwen at 12:55 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

First Voices

Heritage Web site gets boost Canadian Press (Sept 9)

"First Voices, a First Nations Internet-based archive recording the province's rapidly disappearing aboriginal languages, was given a near million-dollar boost Monday by Heritage Minister Sheila Copps."

First Voices is a group of web-based tools and services to be used for archiving aboriginal languages. It is based in British Columbia.


Posted by Gwen at 12:55 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

September 06, 2003

Puretracks for downloads

Legalize Downloads by George Emerson. Globe and Mail (Sep 5)

"For the first time, Canadians have a legal way to download digital music files from the internet. It's a service called Puretracks, and it makes its debut this month. " Songs begine at 99 cents.

Posted by Gwen at 11:34 AM Permalink | Comments (15)

September 01, 2003

Virtual Gramophone

Virtual Gramophone, Canadian Historical Sound Recordings, has added 2,300 entries from the 1920s and 30s. Has Real Audio and MP3 files. http://www2.nlc-bnc.ca/gramophone/src/home.htm

Posted by Gwen at 02:10 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

Blogs Canada

Blogs Canada aims to be a directory to blogs written by Canadians. Also keeps a list of resources new bloggers can use. http://www.blogscanada.ca

Posted by Gwen at 12:57 PM Permalink | Comments (0)

Travel Online

More Canadians booking travel on-line: Study Globe and Mail (Aug 28) -- An Ispsos-Reid study found that 36 percent of Canadians with Internet access have booked some travel online, and that the Internet is the primary source of travel information for 35 percent of users. Favourite travel web sites are Expedia, Travelocity, Air Canada, and CAA.

Posted by Gwen at 10:33 AM Permalink | Comments (0)