Canadiana is a term used to describe things (e.g., books, historical documents, works of art, music and artifacts), ideas, or activities that concern or are distinctive ofCanada,its peoples, and/orits culture, especially works ofliterature and other cultural products. It can also refer to the collection of such materials, such as in cultural fields likemusic orart.[1][2][3]
As a category often seen inbookstores and in researchlibraries, Canadiana can describe works produced in Canada (including literature andnon-fiction), works about Canada, and works published outside of Canada that are of special interest or significance to Canada.[4] More generally, the term can also include books that do not necessarily deal with Canada or Canadians themselves, but were written by Canadians or people who were Canadians at some point in their life. Two books by Canadian authorDouglas Coupland—Souvenir of Canada andSouvenir of Canada 2—for example, are collections of images of pop-culture Canadiana.
The suffixes-ana and-iana are commonly used in reference to a collection of things that relate to a specific place, person, etc. Similar to the concept of Canadiana is that ofAmericana for theUnited States.The termCanuckiana has been used (rarely), in humorous contexts, as a synonym for Canadiana.[5][6]
Since 1950, one of the specific mandates of theLibrary and Archives Canada (LAC) has been to document the published heritage of Canada through a comprehensive bibliography—titled Canadiana: The National Bibliography of Canada.[4]
Canadiana Subject Headings In English, a list ofsubject headings in the English language, usingcontrolled vocabulary, to "access and express the topic content of documents on Canada and Canadian topics." As of 2021[update], the database contains around 2,500 subject and geographic name headings in English. When cataloguing in English, LAC uses theLibrary of Congress/NACO Authority File (LC/NAF).
Canadiana Name Authorities in French, used by LAC and other Canadian libraries when creating bibliographic descriptions in French. The database contains over 600,000 records for names, names/titles,uniform titles, and series titles.
Canadiana.org — A non-profit, culturalNGO with the mandate to locate and preserve early printed Canadian materials. Much of this material is available in digitized format atEarly Canadiana Online.
Thisiscanadiana.com — A Canadiana blog and educational video series exploring lesser-known tales from Canadian history.
Peel's Prairie Provinces — A full-text, searchable database of digitized prairie Canadiana, including newspapers and other Western Canadian publications
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