HISTORY IS WHERE YOU STAND PUTS PEACE PAST ON INTERNET

(Dorthea Calverley Collection on the Internet unveiled at Public Library Wednesday night)

March 18, 1999

By Mark Nielsen, Daily News Staff

With the tug of a red ribbon wrapped around the computer terminals at the Dawson Creek Public Library, the History Is Where You Stand web site was officially opened on Wednesday night.

The web site contains some 600 articles about the history of the Peace, most garnered from the Calverley Collection, an archive of local history that had been hidden away in a back room at the library for many years. But thanks to modern technology and the efforts of many, a good portion of that material is now readily available on the Internet.

Project editor Gerry Clare noted that the woman who originally collected the material, Dorthea Calverley, maintained that it should be accessible to students. "Today, of course, that means a web site on the Internet", he said.

As much as credit was given to Clare for the hours he devoted to the project, he gave credit to many others for completing the effort. In particular, he thanked the office administration students at Northern Lights College who typed the material.

"In four months those young ladies turned out 4,000 pages of typed material", he said. "Their work was absolutely critical to the project being finished on time."

The beginnings of the Calverley collection date back to 1936 when Dorthea Calverley began collecting anything and everything related to the history of the Peace Country. The result is 28 ring-binder volumes of material focused on such subjects as agriculture, church history, and transportation. Seven volumes are dedicated to Peace River First Nations and a further volume holds Indian legends, mystery, and adventure stories.

The site is being continually updated as well. With help from the Peace River Block News stories as young as two days old are being put onto the site.

The site also includes plenty of photos, including some 60 historical images, dating back to the early 1900s, that Clare got from the provincial archive. The site also includes a link to the archive to help out those who want to do some further research.

With the help of some more students and an expert on web sites, Clare said the project was completed on January 31 -- on budget and ahead of schedule.

"I think Dorthea Calverley would have been proud of what we've done with her work," said Clare.

Head librarian Mary Toma said the web site has already helped her on a number of occasions to track down queries for people. Until now, Toma said the Calverley Collection was stored in a locked room in the back of the library, and none of the material could be taken out of the building.

"So you had to be here to use it, and now that's no longer the case," she said.

Councilor Marcheta Leoppky, who represents the City on the library board, welcomed the web site as a great step. "This library is not standing still, it's keeping up with the times, it's ahead of the times."

Noting that a good portion of the funding came from the provincial government's BC 21 fund, South Peace MLA Jack Weisgerber said it was an example of how money generated by lotteries should be used. "This is an incredibly good investment of public money," he said. "It's what I believe is a far more acceptable use of lottery funds which often tend to just be dumped into general revenue."