eCulture

The eCulture Directorate has developed and currently manages two innovative cultural services: Culture.ca, Canada's Cultural Gateway for all Canadians, and the Canadian Cultural Observatory, including its on-line service Culturescope.ca, which meets the special needs of Canadian cultural development professionals.

Canada's Cultural Gateway

Culture.ca is a collaborative initiative of the Department of Canadian Heritage, as part of the Canadian Culture Online Strategy. The site was developed in partnership with institutions from the public and private sectors, and was publicly launched in November 2003 in tandem with a sponsored nationwide promotional campaign. Prior to launch, the site was extensively tested across Canada and received favourable reactions.

Culture.ca is a unique gateway designed for Canadians to explore, find and share the best of Canadian culture on-line. Extensive and continually revised and updated resources connect to the history, art, peoples, places, sports, and media that help define who we are as Canadians.

This initial version of the site includes 1.5 million fully searchable Web resources, and provides direct access to more than 8,000 quality Canadian cultural websites catalogued in partnership with the National Library of Canada. Featured content encourages users to explore cultural topics in further depth and presents perspectives from Canadians, including cultural leaders from across the country. Culture.ca also links to Terminus 1525, an innovative on-line community for emerging creators. Long-term goals include the addition of further sharing opportunities for Canadians and increased youth participation.

Canadian Cultural Observatory

The Observatory's mandate is to inform and enhance cultural development in Canada and abroad by:

• fostering more responsive research;
• encouraging informed decision-making for policy and planning and;
• stimulating community debate and improved knowledge exchange.

The Observatory's new on-line digital interactive hub, Culturescope.ca, as launched by the Deputy Minister of Canadian Heritage on November 13, 2003, in collaboration with its federal and non-governmental partners.

Culturescope.ca is an interactive hub for cultural policy and development professional in Canada - including decision makers, researchers, planners and managers.

Culturescope.ca development is facilitated by the Canadian Cultural Observatory, with Support from the Canadian Culture Online strategy of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

Culturescope.ca delivers, in both official languages, quick and easy access to:

• A Resource Collection of quality Canadian content, consisting of up-to-date research, statistics, global perspectives, and links to quality sites of interest.
  
  
• A Reference Desk, enabling researchers to quickly and easily access the services of the National Library of Canada's national and international network of over 10,000 reference librarians.