Historical Periods of Canadian History

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Organizing a topic as diverse as Canadian history into periods is challenging. Canadian history spans hundreds of years, covers events from varying points of views, and contains dimensions of culture, theme, and politics. To understand how to organize history logically into periods, it is helpful to refer to Canadian history sources.

Two history texts by Bumstead and Silver will be considered. The manner in which they organize Canadian history into logical and comprehensive periods will be taken into account. Each text establishes a chronological framework and within this, creates historical periods. Each period is intended to represent as logically as possible, the major cultural inclinations, political and social events, and thematic trends occurring within that period. Bumstead and Silver outline several broad periods, then delve into each period with a precise focus. Silver has a social focus within each period, and Bumstead has a thematic focus.

Defining specific periods, which represent the dominant themes and events taking place within the period, is a way of organizing the vast entirety of Canadian history into a format that is logical, comprehensive, and contemporary. It is beneficial to use this as a baseline when examining the way this topic is organized in the schedules.

Canadian Historical Periods in the Index

While the Dewey decimal system contains a comprehensive index, the Library of Congress Classification system does not (Taylor 430). Each volume of the LCC schedules contains its own index and these indexes do not refer to one another. Finding subjects in the schedules can be awkward. To locate a topic, one must check through each volume index of all the different disciplines that may ...

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...n conjunction with other types of classification systems in a library environment. The LCC schedules contain a higher level of specificity and detail than those in DDC. This is as a result of subject matter expects constructing areas of the schedule. The primary users of LCC may be subject matter experts or those who want to consult a classification system with a high level of specificity.

Works Cited

Bumstead, J.M, ed. Interpreting Canada’s Past. 2nd ed. Toronto: Oxford Press, 1993. Print.

Jacob, Williams R. Francis Parkman, Historian as Hero: The Formative Years. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. Print.

Silver, A.I, ed. An Introduction to Canadian History. Toronto: Canadian Scholar Press, 1990. Print.

Taylor, Arlene G. Introduction to Cataloguing and Classification. 10th ed. Westport Conn:

Libraries Unlimited, 2006. Print.

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