Knowledge Ontario works with cultural organizations in Ontario, particularly as content providers, to optimize the power of the Web to make material discoverable, interactive and widely accessed.
Our Ontario online discovery of history, culture and digital collections
Ask Ontario online chat reference help
Learn Ontario teaching digital literacies
Connect Ontario transforming the public library online user experience
Knowledge Ontario and Ontario culture organizations
Cultural organizations such as archives, museums and historical societies manage and often serve as the repository of materials that are the community memory. In addition to caring for the objects in their care to ensure their continued existence for future generations, the cultural heritage sector is also involved in making these cultural collections accessible to the citizens of Ontario. Exciting new opportunities and challenges for greater access to collections and engagement by the user community continue to evolve, in response to the ever-shifting impact of the web environment. As a society we increasingly live, learn, work and play in the online space.
Knowledge Ontario collaborates with you by providing the expertise and the technologies required to make our history and culture (both past and present) discoverable and shareable by the digital generation. Working in partnership with numerous cultural heritage organizations, we strive to ensure that our amazing digital collections representing our community stories are accessible and available in ways that connect with Ontarians. We support the work of archives, museums and historical societies by ensuring that we continue to evolve our web technologies in sustainable ways for the benefit of all.
Some example of our partnerships:
Our Ontario digital discovery services offer:
Ontarians:
- The OurOntario.ca site to discover the extraordinary stories contained in the digital collections of public libraries, cultural and historical organizations – visually engaging and one stop search to thousands of digital vides, photographs, oral histories, brochures, newspapers, etc…
- Easy ways to find government documents –over 26,000 government documents of the Legislative Library in one place – govdocs.ourontario.ca
Your organization:
- An opportunity to open your digital collections to the world and increase discovery of your local content
- Greater exposure of your digital collections to students, librarians, and educators
- Toolkits, training, web hosting for your digital collections – available through Our Ontario with a community of support and ongoing innovation
- Opportunity to make your local content available to your community, to Ontario and beyond
- Locally branded websites for your digital collections, with interactive web 2.0 features for user engagement
- Leveraging knowledge of community – tools that enable your community to add the stories, details, anecdotes and commentary to photos, letters, documents and more
- Cultural preservation for future generations – away to tell the stories of the past and the present - libraries are interviewing war vets, business people, local leaders and other interesting groups – we can provide the means to tell their stories and make them accessible to all
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Ask Ontario chat services offer culture organizations:
- Access to a real-time chat reference and research services
- Our broad partnerships with Ontario libraries, universities, colleges and other organizations offer Ontarians a trusted and authoritative information resource
- ONdemande, the French equivalent of askON, staffed by bilingual experts with a wide knowledge of French language resources
- The perfect service for researching local history and family genealogies, and finding resources to learn out more about Ontario.
- Availablity across the province, in both large and small communities
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Learn Ontario resources offer culture organizations:
- Answers to tech questions and “just-in-time” resources that provide the information Ontarians need right when they need it
- Access 24/7 to a wide range of informative online tutorials that help develop digital literacies
- Staff support “when you need it” through the LearnOntario.ca portal
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Connect Ontario and BiblioCommons offer culture organizations:
Connect Ontario's goal is to transform the library catalogue into a rich discovery experience that enables patrons to interact with resources and each other. Library users can browse the new materials at the library, review them, and share their lists with others. One result is that holds and borrowing increases on books, videos, CDs and more. Tagging is a popular feature that lets library users use keywords to create their own lists for future reference.
- A fun, flexible, and easy-to-use online library catalogue that connects users through social media tools
- A fully featured, out-of-the-box library catalogue that’s easy for libraries and patrons to use, and connects residents through social media tools.
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