Welcome to the Virtual Archives

Virtual Archives (VA) is an electronic archives publication. The historical documents presented here were transcribed and translated. This accessibility helps promote historical and documentary analyses.

Handwritten archives are often presented as museum pieces. The elegance of letters written by hand is captivating. However, sometimes handwriting prevents the content of a manuscript from being accessed. It is with the intention of making the content of handwritten documents accessible that Virtual Archives was created.

This electronic publishing initiative is also helping to create a database, which is still being developed and enriched. When annotated archives and virtual exhibits of historical documents are added, VA electronic publishing will be renewed and in constant progression. Special access to sources not only makes the texts easier to access and understand, it also centralizes the archival documents.

For this electronic publishing project, some documents from the Archdiocese of Quebec’s archives collection have been scanned for preservation purposes. It will allow for the future development of electronic transcription software (École Polytechnique de Montréal) and the development of translation software from Latin and Classical French to contemporary French and English (PORTAGE project by the Interactive Language Technologies Group at the National Research Council’s Institute for Information Technology).

The project is a work in progress thanks to the expert participation of the researchers.

Partners and collaborators
  
Word of thanks to the partners and collaborators of Virtual Archives


How to reach us
  
Your comments are welcome


Welcome to the Virtual Cathedral exhibit, which contains a remarkable collection of archives from the Archdiocese of Quebec.

This exhibit helps launch an electronic archives publication project that gives access to rare archival documents and their written content. Historical comprehension of the transcribed and translated texts is the intention of this project.

The meticulous and highly skilled preservation efforts of the Archdiocese of Quebec’s archives office has led some of the oldest historical documents on the North American continent to make their way through the centuries so that they could be transmitted to us today. Related to the exhibited written documents is a selection of religious objects of art from the Treasury of the Archdiocese of Quebec—a magnificent complement to the exhibit.



  Designed by: Pakobrats© 2008 LTRC-AAQ