Corriere Canadese Digitization Project

DIGITIZATION OF THE CORRIERE CANADESE

Through our work on the Italian Fallen Workers Memorial Wall Project and our upcoming book Land of Triumph & Tragedy, we have learned the value of source documentation. We have also learned that while many ethno-Canadian newspapers have been digitized, the Corriere Canadese has not. We have located 113 old microfilm reels of the Corriere Canadese published from June 1954 through to December of 1999.  Each roll of microfilm will be digitized to a searchable database and will be installed on a public server so that any scholars, students, historians and researchers can locate items of interest to further their research.

SUPPORTING QUOTES FROM ITALIAN-CANADIAN SCHOLARS

This is a most worthwhile project that will provide a fundamental tool for all who study the history of Italians in Canada. — Olga Zorzi Pugliese, Professor Emeritus, University of Toronto.

For more than half a century the Corriere Canadese has reported on what is important to Italians in Canada. It has recorded joyous events and tragedies, accomplishments and failings. It has marked our growth as a vital part of Canada. To make the entire run of the Corriere Canadese digitally available is to make that part of the Italian-Canadian experience available to everyone and to ensure that our history in Canada is available to future generations to read, to know, and to write about. — Prof. Konrad Eisenbichler, FRSC, Comm. OMRI, University of Toronto.

I fully support the planned project to digitize the Corriere Canadese. This noble initiative will enable scholars, students and members of the community to search and access valuable historical information helping to articulate the beliefs, values, activities and accomplishments of Toronto’s dynamic Italian community during a key formation period (the last fifty years of the Twentieth Century). — Angelo Bolotta, principal author and project leader Transformations: The Italian Canadian Experience.

I am delighted to hear of this proposed project to digitize the Corriere Canadese, as students and scholars will finally have convenient access (with search capabilities!) to this important record of the Italian immigrant and ethnic community in Canada. — John Zucchi, author, Italians in Toronto.

As a historian who years ago spent many hours reading the Corriere Canadese on microfilm at a public library, I very much welcome the proposal to digitize a newspaper that offers an indispensable entry point int o the dynamic history of the post-1945 Italian community in Toronto and Canada. The search function alone is bound to attract many more students, scholars and history enthusiasts to this invaluable source. — Franca Iacovetta, author, Such Hardworking People.

The digitization of the Corriere Canadese is an important project to preserve the history and social experience of Italian-Canadians in Southern Ontario. It will become a useful archive for future students, teachers and scholars of settlement history in Canada. — Joseph Pivato, Ph.D. editor of The Anthology of Italian-Canadian Writing.

This project would contribute significantly to the research on postwar Italian immigration and life in Toronto.— Bruno Ramirez, author of The Italians in Canada: Yesterday and Today.