Library and Archives Canada has one of the richest Canadian directory collections in the world. The collection includes Canadian national, provincial/territorial, county and city directories, primarily of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in paper, microform and electronic formats. In order to provide improved access to the wealth of information contained in the directories, Library and Archives Canada has undertaken a partnership with the Canadian Institute of Historical Microreproductions (CIHM) to digitize a growing selection of pre-1901 volumes.
The directory was and is intended to facilitate communication between buyer and seller, to be a tool for advertising and marketing within a particular community and also to publicize that community and its advantages to a broader audience. Information included in many city directories on the occupations, addresses, status as tenant or homeowner and phone numbers of inhabitants is useful in marketing. The classified business directory or buyer`s guide and the wealth of advertising contained in most directories are directed at the person looking for a particular product or service. Currently, the database supports keyword searching in one directory, or across all. Future phases of this project will add more pre-1901 Canadian directories, as well as enhanced searching capability. CIHM managed the scanning and metadata production for the pre-1901 directories database project, as well as providing quality control and optical character recognition (OCR) services.