Project Team
Meet the people responsible for adding the MacDonald Family Letters collection to the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives.
Project Management
Margaret Conrad is the Canada
Research Chair in Atlantic Canada Studies at the University of New Brunswick.
She is co-director of the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives project.
Lisa Charlong is assistant director of the Electronic Text Centre
and coordinator of XML initiatives. In addition to these roles Lisa can be found managing projects. Lisa is owned by a killer cat, Tigger.
Administration and Research
David Bent is a PhD candidate in Canadian History at the University of
New Brunswick, supervised by Dr. Margaret Conrad. His work focuses on rural and agricultural
history in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Nova Scotia. He works for the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives
as an encoder, transcriber, and researcher.
Kelly Chaves is a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick,
studying Native North Americans in the British Navy and Merchant service from 1700-1776. For this
project, she researched, wrote for the website, and organized various meetings and events.
Kristin Crandall is an undergraduate student at the University of New Brunswick
honouring in World Literature and Culture Studies, and Digital Humanities.
She coordinated contributions to the site and performs text encoding, proofreading, and metadata creation for the project.
Roger Gillis conducted primary and secondary research on the MacDonald letters, which culminated in his MA thesis,
“The Life and Letters of Prince Edward Island Proprietor Captain John MacDonald of Glenaladale: An exercise in Humanities Computing.”
He currently works as the Archivist at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Sharon Leighton is an MA student at the University of New Brunswick, where she is studying history.
She did proofreading for this project, and does bibliographic work for the Atlantic Canada Portal.
Consultants
Rusty Bittermann is a professor of Canadian History at St. Thomas University.
His work has focused on property rights and politics in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Prince Edward Island.
Mary J. Gallant has been very involved with the P.E.I. Scottish Settlers Historical Society as treasurer and member of
several committees. A strong interest in family history has led to her being the designated keeper of the MacDonald family documents.
She also had a hand in producing the original transcriptions of the MacDonald letters.
Digital Imaging
Roger Gillis was responsible for scanning, creating metadata, and handling the original MacDonald letters.
Following the scanning process, he also created high-quality archival digital images as well as the web surrogate images that are featured on ACVA.
Mike Meade is the digital imaging coordinator with the
Electronic Text Centre at the University of New
Brunswick. He coordinated the scanning and associated metadata used to build digital
collections in the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives. Mike also
recorded and edited audio versions of selected documents in the MacDonald Family Letters collection.
Audio Recording
Rose Cole is a student and Research Assistant in the Sociology Department at the
University of New Brunswick. She narrated selected letters
in the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives' MacDonald Family Letters collection.
Eric Hill is a record seller, writer, editor and grumbler from Fredericton, NB.
He narrated the letters written by John MacDonald to his sister Helen
for the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives' MacDonald Family Letters collection.
Duncan MacGillivray is an undergraduate student and assistant at
the Electronic Text Centre at the
University of New Brunswick. Duncan assisted with editing the
audio versions of the documents in the MacDonald Family Letters collection.
Mike Meade is the digital imaging coordinator with the
Electronic Text Centre at the University of New
Brunswick. He coordinated the scanning and associated metadata used to build digital
collections in the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives. Mike also
recorded and edited audio versions of the documents in the MacDonald Family Letters collection.
Translation
Rebecca Colborne reviews, translates, and edits all text featured on French versions of
Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives websites.
Transcription and Archives Research
Myrna Babineau is a retired Registered Nurse, President of the P.E. I.
Scottish Settlers Historical Society and amateur historian. She was responsible for working
on the original transcriptions of the MacDonald letters.
David Bent is a PhD candidate in Canadian History at the University of
New Brunswick, supervised by Dr. Margaret Conrad. His work focuses on rural and agricultural
history in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Nova Scotia. He works for the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives
as an encoder, transcriber, and researcher.
Kelly Chaves is a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick,
studying Native North Americans in the British Navy and Merchant service from 1700-1776. For this
project, she researched, wrote for the website, and organized various meetings and events.
Mary J. Gallant has been very involved with the P.E.I. Scottish Settlers Historical Society as treasurer and member of
several committees. A strong interest in family history has led to her being the designated keeper of the MacDonald family documents.
She also had a hand in producing the original transcriptions of the MacDonald letters.
Ryan O'Connor spent the summer of 2001 transcribing letters by Captain
John MacDonald for the Prince Edward Island Scottish Settlers
Historical Society. He is currently working on a PhD dissertation
about the origins of the environmental movement in Toronto at the
University of Western Ontario. His research blog can be found at
www.thegreatgreennorth.com.
Document Encoding
David Bent is a PhD candidate in Canadian History at the University of
New Brunswick, supervised by Dr. Margaret Conrad. His work focuses on rural and agricultural
history in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Nova Scotia. He works for the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives
as an encoder, transcriber, and researcher.
Kelly Chaves is a PhD student at the University of New Brunswick,
studying Native North Americans in the British Navy and Merchant service from 1700-1776. For this
project, she researched, wrote for the website, and organized various meetings and events.
Kristin Crandall is an undergraduate student at the University of New Brunswick
honouring in World Literature and Culture Studies, and Digital Humanities. She coordinated contributions to the site and performs text encoding, proofreading, and metadata creation for the project.
Roger Gillis applied the initial round of XML encoding to the MacDonald letters. He still sees XML tags in his dreams.
Graphic Design
Monica Currie is a graphic designer with the Electronic Text Centre
at the University of New Brunswick. She creates images and design elements for the website and promotional material for
collections in the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives.
Systems & Development
Angus Fletcher is a junior developer and Computer Science undergraduate with the
Electronic Text Centre at the University of New Brunswick. He assists in the
creation and maintenance of the tools used to create the websites in the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives.
Jason Nugent is a systems analyst with the
Electronic Text Centre at the University
of New Brunswick. He provides support and systems maintenance for the servers powering the
Atlantic Canada Portal and Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives.
Jen Whitney is a developer with the
Electronic Text Centre at the University
of New Brunswick. She organizes contributions from transcribers, encoders, researchers,
photographers, and graphic artists to create websites for the digital collections in
the Atlantic Canada Virtual Archives.