For two days last November, the Library and Archives Canada (LAC) hosted the Irish Studies Symposium 2008 in Ottawa (there was one in 2006).

Over sixty people crowded into a room to participate in workshops led by academics who have studied the Irish-Canadian Diaspora, discussing topics ranging from the Irish census and its relationship to the census here, to the history of both the Irish people and those immigrants to Canada.

In 2005, both LAC and the National Archives of Ireland (NAI) came together to collaborate on the digitization of the 1901 and 1911 Irish Census. These census will soon be made available for free on the National Archives of Ireland website <www.nationalarchives.ie>.

Since that time, problems have been presented with digitizing (lack of resources at both archives; missing material; and in switching the transcription to a private company, resulting in some errors of transcription from the original records to the online content), but now the NAI is ready to publish the census online, although not all at once.

Counties Antrim, Cork, Donegal, Down, Galway, Kerry, King's (Offaly), and Wexford have been put on in May. Counties Armagh, Carlow, Cavan, Clare, Fermanagh, Kildare, Kilkenny, Leitrim, Limerick, Mayo, and Waterford will be put on in July.

Meanwhile, Counties Londonderry (Derry), Lonford, Louth, Meath, Monaghan, Queen's County (Laois), Roscommon, Sligo, Tipperary, Tyrone, Westmeath, and Wicklow will be added by the end of August.

In September, they will be rebuilding the website to include the full transcription of all the data of the 1911 Irish Census.

This will include-among other things-religion, occupation, relationship to the head of family, literacy status, country or county of origin, Irish language proficiency, specified illnesses, and child survival information. NAI says that by the end of the year, both census will be posted online.

In 2006, LAC-in cooperation with NAI-published an astounding online exhibit entitled, "The Shamrock and the Maple Leaf: Irish-Canadian Documentary Heritage at Library and Archives Canada" <http://collectionscanada.gc.ca/ireland/index-e.html>.