The Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CRKN), a national consortium serving the 75 universities in Canada, has begun freely sharing more than 10,000 items of a growing collection of digitized documentary heritage in JSTOR’s Open Community Collections.

When completed, the collection on JSTOR will feature historical pre-1900 colonial, provincial, and federal government documents, including pre-Confederation official government publications produced by colonial legislatures, federal government documents published between 1867 and 1900, pre-1900 official guides for prospective immigrants to Canada, as well as a selection of official publications from France and Great Britain.

Through this pilot project, CRKN aims to increase the discoverability and use of its Government Publications sub-collection, gain insight into how the content is used in research, and identify and evaluate tools and services that can expand the impact of this vital collection.

The current Canadiana content in the Open Community Collections can be explored on the CRKN collection page on JSTOR.