The Canadian Emma Gees

[Borden Battery]

The book entitled "The Canadian Emma Gees" has been transcribed and posted on the Internet for the free use of military historians. The material is presented as a complete facsimile with exact page numbers retained for correct referencing and citation. The URL address for this material is as follows: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~b...c_contents.html

[Neil Burns]

Great resource.

Can't thank you enough.

Neil

[Borden Battery]

Thanks.

Brett Payne and I have been sensitive to the scanning of this original work. I am pleased with the presentation format that Brett has designed. It is as close to a facsimile as is possible at this time. All page numbering has been retained as well as spelling and typographical errors - this is to provide the researcher with a complete facsimile of the original material.

What do you think of the notice regarding the copyright and how we handled that ... any external comments would be appreciated? We researched the matter of copyright and believe it to be totally expired. Any other suggestions on this item?

If you do not live in Ottawa, London/Kew, Washington or Canberra etc., it can be very difficult for the professional and amateur military historian to access original source material. If this effort on the Canadian Emma Gees might get people working at the National Archives and War Museum to put more of the rare material online in a format that can be referenced [format and page numbering kept intact et.] ... please feel free to forward to others.

I would like to undertake a few more of these projects, however, it is very difficult to even borrow most of this material. At present I am looking to borrow from somewhere "The History of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps, C.E.F. by H.T. Logan and M.R. Levey, 1919. It is a rare document and would be another useful reference text to be placed onto the Internet for serious military historians who cannot access it.

Such Internet publishing actions (i) enables more people outside Ottawa and elsewhere to access key source material (ii) increases the level of customer service from the institution without incurring daily staff resource issues, (iii) reduces the demand to handle delicate originals, and (iv) would reduce the probability of accumulated damage and/or loss of this aging archival material.

I borrowed the Emma Gee book twice through inter-library loan and noticed some additional minor damage to the book between my borrowing dates. At some time, we may lose all access to this material unless other measures to preserve and distribute are not found.

I assume you are aware of the posting of the posting of "The Official History of the Canadian Army in the First World War " by Col. G.W.L. Nicholson and listed on the Canadian government website and downloadable as a pdf file. The only weakness in this material is the apparent lost of the original page numbering sequence - which make the entire effort of little use when wishing to reference a section. In addition, they have not included the maps.

Finally, we are currently talking to some recent graduate students and may be able to post thesis material on this website in the near future. In fact, if any of the subscribers are aware of new research material from graduate students - please refer them to us.

Regards

- Dwight Mercer