War Diaries through Heritage Canadiana

Hi,
When I will improve this program (and if no donwload function is added) I will send you a link to get it.

 

Thanks. I will look forward to any time saver.

 

I have received an update regarding the Heritage Canadiana war diaries from my contact there. The War Diary update did not come in January as I originally stated. When I made contact yesterday the first response was that all the war diaries that will be posted are already online. There is a spreadsheet on the site that tells the areas that are complete and that what my contact referenced. I mentioned that he had originally stated that there are 742 reels currently online with a total of 1068 reels as the goal. He said he would check on this discrepancy from the site spreadsheet.

He got back to me today with some good news. I will quote his reply:

"Unfortunately, the spreadsheet was in error: we have an additional 300-400 reels digitized and ready to appear online, but are still experiencing delays in getting them up (we're in the middle of rebuilding the way we upload content, which will make the operation much more efficient going forward, at the cost of some growing pains right now)."

Rather than unfortunate, it appears that the mistake is fortunate for those of you interested in seeing future additions to the war diaries. He did not indicate a time line but the reels have already been digitized so that is good news.

I will post any further updates here.

 

Thanks for posting and I wait patiently...well...I wait.

 

I spotted two missing files on the Excel sheet. They are: T-18389, which has the 14th Field Company, RCE and the HQ I Cdn. Corps Troops and T-18390, which has the 14th Field Company, R.C.E. and the 15th Field Company, R.C.E.

 

I will check it out tomorrow. Thanks.

 

JohnS,

Check out the thread. There is newer version of the spreadsheet further along in the thread.

 

Oh, I missed that one. Thanks. I got the first two, but not the third. Well, two out three isn't bad I guess.
Still no word on more reels?

 

Oh btw, the updated excel file is missing the 15th and HQ 1st on the two reels. I went through these files the other day and they are on them. See my list above.

 

I have not heard anything at this point. I will try and connect Heritage and see if I can get any more information.

 

I ordered a couple and they said that they should be up within 10 to 12 weeks. I hope that they are part of a bunch!!! Fyi: both were RCE files, which shouldn't come as a surprise to some of you.

Btw: they seemed quite pleased that someone is interested in these.

 

I put an email into my contact as well on Friday (4/15/16). I will see what he has to say. Keep us informed regarding your order.

 

I have received the following response today from the Heritage Canadiana site regarding the posting of additional war diaries:

"There are several reasons why things are proceeding slowly: while we rebuild our automated ingestion tools, we are forced to ingest content into the repository manually (in a time-consuming way); also, fiscal year-end obligations have forced us to prioritize other content over the Heritage backlog.

To tackle your question directly: my best guess would be within "months." But I'm also inquiring with our production staff and will let you know when I hear back."

I will post any additional information that I receive,

 

With help from GPO's son, I was able to review T12660 - 12663 which covers the 7th Recce Regiment, 3rd Cdn Div. Thanks again Matt.
David, a great resource has been uncovered. Thanks very much.

 

Here is a update from my contact at Heritage Canadiana. I had requested to see if a certain reel was available for upload as well as an update of the posting of war diaries at the site. Here is the response:

"The situation at the moment, unfortunately, is a bit complex:

a) if you're trying to access a reel that was previously available online, but is now producing an error message, this is a problem we're working to resolve
b) there are additional reels queued in the War Diaries section which are taking some time to ingest into the repository; others were simply not included in the project by LAC.

It might be worthwhile to send a batch reproduction request for all the reels you want; those in our system will be online eventually, and the remainder can be reproduced by LAC."

 

Hopefully there is some good news regarding the Heritage Canadiana War Diaries. They have recently added two more reels to increase the number of reels from 742 to 744. These reels are T-12400 and T-12401, respectively of 1635 and 1614 pages. The subject matter of the two reels is 13th Canadian Infantry Brigade from August 1943 to January 1946 and 14th Canadian Infantry Brigade from September 1941 to July 1942. I hope this is an omen for more future postings.

 

I saw that today. It is encouraging. However, I asked about my request for reels a few days ago and they said, "What reels?" Oh great, it has only been since April that I asked for them. I might be in Ottawa next week...um, anyone got a flamethrower that I can borrow to light a fire under their butts? lol

 

I just saw that 823 files have now been updated. That is up from 744. Now to figure out which ones have been added.

 

These are the new reels I noticed:

T-7610
T-7611
T-10630
T-11072
T-11073
T-11135
T-11138
T-11139
T-11185
T-11186
T-11203
T-11999
T-12000
T-12001
T-12002
T-12396
T-12397
T-12400
T-12401
T-15473
T-15474
T-15475
T-15476
T-15477
T-15871
T-15873
T-15874
T-15875
T-15878
T-15879
T-15880
T-15881
T-15882
T-15883
T-15884
T-15885
T-15886
T-15889
T-15890
T-15891
T-15892
T-15893
T-15894
T-15895
T-15896
T-15897
T-15898
T-15899
T-15900
T-15909
T-15910
T-15962
T-15964
T-15965
T-15966
T-15967
T-15968
T-15969
T-15970
T-17825
T-18342
T-18343
T-18344
T-18377
T-18378
T-18379
T-18386
T-18387
T-18388
T-18396
T-18578
T-18579
T-18591
T-18592
T-18628
T-18629
T-18794
T-18795

A few might have escaped me though, but the important thing is that all are listed here:
War diaries - Héritage

Michel

 

Michel:

Thanks for the update. They added two reels a few days ago. It looks like they upped the ante.