I’m a great fan of using primary sources in class, so I was pleased to find out that both the National Archives of Canada and the U.S. have some very impressive collections online.
The Canadian collection, called Collections Canada, is solid covering a wide variety of topics with probably thousands of scanned pictures available online. The What We Have: On Our Website link allows you to easily search the entire collection of cool Canadian resources.
The American archives are a little different. The Digital Vaults are a vast array of cool flash effects as pictures representing archival records shuffle their way around the screen. You can select one of those, or shuffle the records to get a new batch to pick from. If you’re not searching for anything in particular, this gives you a fascinating way to randomly pick an event, photo, or document in American history. If you’re more of a traditionalist, there is an option to search. I was having some difficulty operating it, but kids would probably figure it out in a hurry.
Both Canada and the U.S. have impressive online collections. I suspect the Canadian one is bigger because I think they started earlier. The American one, because of its design, is more likely to appeal to the teenage set and the Canadian one to us conservative, older folks. Either way, I’m excited that those dusty, allergy-irritating archives are out in the sunlight (or monitor light?) where people can get at them.