The Canadian History Research Centre supports historical and archival research using the Museum’s extensive holdings. Our staff can assist with research questions, including providing access to our archives (textual, audio-visual and photographic), our library, and the Museum’s national collection.
The Research Centre is open by appointment only to the general public and to our institution partners. We require four to six weeks’ advance notice for collections visits.
Research services
- Thematic research and preparation of research files
- Reports from artifact database
- Digitization of catalogue cards and accession files
- On-site consultation of collections for research purposes
- Virtual consultation of archival material (textual, audiovisual and photographic) for research may be possible.
Fees may apply for some services. Please contact us for more details.
Contact us
For inquiries about licensing and reproductions:
819-776-8252 | permission@historymuseum.ca
For research services including:
- Archives – Textual collections
- Archives – Audiovisual collections
- Archives – Photographic collections
- Library and rare book collections
- Artifact collections
- Archaeology collections
The artifact collection
The collection includes over 295,000 objects documenting life in Canada. It is organized in three main categories: Ethnology, Folklore and History. Items in the collections include Indigenous art and objects, folk art, furniture, fine crafts, textiles and much more.
The archaeology collection
This is the oldest collection at the Canadian Museum of History. It documents the history of human settlement in what is now called Canada and includes over 4 million objects and specimens.
Archives
The Canadian Museum of History has extensive archival holdings of unpublished documents, photographs and audiovisual material related to anthropology, archaeology, Indigenous Peoples, folklore, multicultural communities, social and political history, material culture, linguistics and museology in Canada.
Documents
The archive houses a wide-ranging collection of records such as field notes, letters, research reports, maps, conference papers, folk tales, legends and songs, musical transcriptions, sound recordings, films and videos. In addition, the archives hold files that document the Museum’s history, exhibitions, collections and productions. These archival holdings, which take up 4 kilometers of shelf space, date from the 1860s to the present day.
Images
The photographic collection encompasses over 1 million images from the end of the 19th century to the present day. It illustrates research activities, artifacts, exhibitions, special events, and architectural views. It includes a variety of traditional photographic formats like b/w glass negatives, lantern slides, b/w or colour negatives, transparencies, and photographic prints on their original supports, along with an increasingly growing collection of digital images.
Audiovisual
The audiovisual collection comprises more than 72,000 sound recordings and 18,000 films and videotapes, representing more than a century of research at the Museum. This includes thousands of hours of interviews, songs, stories and events on a variety of media from wax cylinders to MP3s, from 16 mm film to MPEG/AVI formats.
Library
The Museum’s library collection covers all aspects of history, ethnology, archaeology, folklore, multiculturalism, material culture, postal history, and Indigenous history and culture as well as museology. The collection comprises more than 85,000 books, over 2,000 journal and magazine titles (150 of which are current subscriptions), all Museum publications dating from 1910 to the present day, and a unique collection of rare books, including limited editions and books published in the 17th and 18th centuries that illustrate the societal mores of the time.
Online search tools
Artifacts and archives
The Museum’s collection and archives can be searched online. They include artifacts, art, photos, texts, and audio and video content.
Library
The libraries of the Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum can be searched on WorldCat. You can choose to search in one or both of the Museum libraries.