Franco-Manitoban memory online : "Au pays de Riel" as a case study in archival public programming

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to provide a contextualised case study of an archival website of the Societe historique de Saint-Boniface (SHSB) of the Centre du patrimoine called Au pays de Riel. My personal viewpoint is that the choices an archival institution makes while creating a website have a significant impact on how audiences interpret the exhibited records and ultimately the institution that houses them. The first chapter will explore the contexts behind why Au pays de Riel became a facet of the SHSB's public program. The second chapter will provide an overview of the design, navigation, and content of Au pays de Riel. The third and most voluminous chapter of this thesis will assess how one module in the Decouvertes section of the website, Notre-Dame-des-Prairies, changed the history of the records it exhibited. My overall response to the issues raised by this thesis is that archivists who are involved in public programming activities like Au pays de Riel should make available as much information as possible about the history of the records that are used in the project.