In Past & Present, protagonist Callie Barnstable researches her latest cold case by searching through photographs in York University’s Toronto Telegram Collection in the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections. The collection actually exists, and while, as an author, I took some liberties with the information Callie discovered, her findings are based on actual digitalized photographs in the collection. Here’s a brief excerpt from the book:
I went online to find the York University Toronto Telegram Archives. I found them under the York Space Institutional Repository as part of the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections. It appeared to be a formidable task: ten thousand, two hundred and ninety-four images. Fortunately, there were a few search options, including one that allowed me to enter a date and the number of images per batch, ranging from five to one hundred. I typed in 1956, selected batches of twenty in ascending order, and hit enter.
The first image was dated January 1, 1956. It was a cute photo of two cats playing with a watering can. The caption was “Cat: Owned by Mrs. Harold Walker.” It made me smile, but it also reminded me that this exercise could become a huge time suck if I didn’t stay focused.
The first reference to a murder included several photographs starting on March 31, with the headline Murder and Suicide in Hamilton, Ontario. Intrigued, I googled for more information, but all links led back to the Telegram photograph archives. Just as well. I didn’t need another murder to investigate.
Read more about the collection here:
https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul-f0433/toronto-telegram
Access to digital images can be found here: https://digital.library.yorku.ca/yul-f0433/toronto-telegram