Researchers can now access more than 100 years of the Windsor City Directory online. The 1888-1988 volumes are available at the Internet Archive and on the Southwestern Ontario Digital Archive at SWODA Publications.

“The original purpose of the directories was to serve as an advertising and marketing tool. They also promoted the community,” explained Leddy librarian Katharine Ball, who launched the Southwestern Ontario Digital Archive over a decade ago to assist faculty, students, and other researchers in their exploration of southwestern Ontario history and culture. “Over the course of the past century, these directories document the long-term development and growth of the city in quite consistent and unique ways.”

The main alphabetical listing of persons and companies provides information such as the place of work and occupation of individuals, and the proprietors and executives of companies.

“The changing focus and clustering of Windsor’s businesses and industries is reflected in the classified business directory” Ball said. “Political and community institutions, such as municipal government, courts, police, schools, churches, and societies, are also described in depth in some of the other sections.”

The directories include a detailed street index, which began in 1904, and functions almost like an online “instant street view,” but in print format. It allows readers to trace the physical layout of the city, and the evolving urban landscape in terms of residential, commercial, and industrial neighbourhoods.

The City of Windsor directory was published from 1888 to 2013. The volumes published from 1972 onward are still within copyright and have been put online with the consent of Ontario Ancestors, and Wallace and Elizabeth Cooper, the final Vernon Publishing copyright holders.

These volumes are available for personal study and research purposes only. The library hopes to make the entire run of Windsor City Directories accessible online in the future.

Explore the directories online or contact the Leddy Library for further information.

In contrast to traditional natural resource management that fosters autocratic decision-making, an ecosystem approach champions collaboration and empowering stakeholders, says a UWindsor researcher.

John Hartig, a visiting scholar at the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, writes in an online column that once isolated pollution sources came under control, the focus has shifted to a more comprehensive ecosystem approach that accounts for all sources of pollution and targets the health and resilience of ecosystems overall.

He cites a recent study by the Healthy Headwaters Lab, “An Ecosystem Approach: Strengthening the Interface of Science, Policy, Practice, and Management.” The authors: Dr. Hartig, research associate Fani Tsaroucha, post-doctoral fellow Ali Mokdad, professor emeritus Doug Haffner, and director Catherine Febria, reviewed 12 ecosystem frameworks and recommended several actions, including:

• establishing a community of practice that includes resource managers, researchers, educators, and practitioners;
• breaking down the “silo mentality” to improve communication and foster co-production of knowledge and co-innovation of solutions;
• building trustful relationships and capacity-strengthening efforts that enable the incorporation of Traditional Ecological Knowledge into every step of ecosystem-based management; and
• including watershed education in the curriculum of K-12 students and educator training for all Great Lakes states and provinces.

“There are many boundaries and barriers to ecosystem-based management, including institutional, geographic, political, disciplinary, cultural, socio-economic, and more,” Hartig concludes. “An ecosystem approach requires spanning such boundaries and overcoming barriers in support of science-based decision-making.”

The column is part of Great Lakes Moment, a monthly series he publishes in conjunction with the magazine-style television program Great Lakes Now, housed at Detroit Public TV.

Read the entire piece, “Great Lakes Moment: An ecosystem approach,” at GreatLakesNow.org.

UWindsor students captured a number of awards at the 2024 Canadian Society for Chemistry conference in Winnipeg.

Two undergraduates won prizes for their research posters: Jonathan Houser in the Bio-organic and Medicinal Chemistry Division and Liz Sylvestre in the Organic Chemistry Division.

This coincided seamlessly with professor John Trant’s talk at the conference on getting undergraduate students involved in research. The Trant team lab comprises around 80 post-graduate and undergraduate researchers.

“This makes us, to my knowledge, the home of the largest number of concurrent undergraduate researchers of any group in Canada,” Dr. Trant said. “Despite this, we don’t do undergraduate research; instead, our undergraduates do research. This distinction is essential.

“In an increasingly globalized competitive environment, it is essential that we provide value-added education. Centering research does this, and it can be scaled to provide students with an unmatched educational opportunity.”

Four graduate students excelled as well:

• Pavel Shelyganov received the Inorganic Division Graduate Student Poster Award
• Azam Mohammadzadeh won a Bio-organic and Medicinal Chemistry Division graduate poster prize
• Will Hosie won a Materials Chemistry Division oral presentation prize
• Samra Khan won the Entrepreneurship Hack-a-thon

A PhD candidate, Khan says the Hack-a-thon was a great experience where she could see first-hand the power of teamwork and leadership, and how entrepreneurship is at core of science and advancement.

“It was a like being in real-world think tank, where small groups of chemists were challenged with addressing a real-world problem and pitching solutions,” says Khan.

“Our team decided to concentrate on a specific aspect of the global issue: the microbial contamination of water after treatment plants, which affects 20 per cent of Indigenous communities in northern Manitoba.”

She says the problem was outside her field of medicinal chemistry cancer research, but entrepreneurship brings creative solutions and solving problems is chemistry’s second nature — “so they really go nicely together!”

Transit Windsor will implement several changes in bus service as part of a move towards a transfer-based system.

Starting Sept. 1, two new routes will replace the Dominion 5:

• the 115 will run from the Windsor International Transit Terminal downtown to the main campus of St. Clair College, past Budimir Public Library, Holy Names Catholic High School, and Bridgeview Public Library
• the 305 will serve residential areas of South Windsor from the Hotel Dieu Grace Healthcare Terminal to the main campus of St. Clair College, past Vincent Massey Secondary School, Holy Names High School, and the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex

In addition, the Tunnel Bus will no longer travel to Little Caesars Arena and instead end its Detroit trips at the Rosa Parks Transit Centre. Special event service to Little Caesars Arena, Comerica Park, and Ford Field will continue by reservation.

Find detailed information on these changes on the Transit Windsor website.