What's changed on your street since 1888? Recently digitized city directories can show you

One hundred years of Windsor history is now accessible online to the public.

The Southwestern Ontario Digital Archive (SWODA) at the University of Windsor digitized all Windsor City Directory volumes from 1888 to 1988.

"You can actually trace how [things have] changed over the years, so it's really interesting," said Katharine Ball, a librarian at the university's Leddy Library who launched SWODA over a decade ago.

Katharine Ball is a librarian at the University of Windsor. (Jennifer La Grassa/CBC)

For local businesses, the directory, which was last published in 2013, used to be a marketing and promotional tool. Residents would have used the annual volume to find out information about local services and business.

The old directories list businesses and citizens alphabetically. Information such as where someone lived or their occupation is listed for citizens, while the directory listed owners and executives for businesses.

Today, Ball says some people use the directory to better understand their own family history. The city also uses past directories for urban planning purposes, while researchers and historians can trace the history of the town and its institutions over time.

For those wanting to take a look back in time, Ball says the resource can be used almost like a written-out Google Street View. "You can follow along the streets … and you can see exactly what businesses are on which streets, who the people were that were living there, where they worked, what their occupations were, all sorts of interesting information," said Ball.

The old, digitized directories can be used like a written-out Google Street view according to librarian Katharine Ball. (Windsor City Directory/Union Publishing)

In 1888, Ball says those streets were mostly filled with small businesses and close-knit communities. By looking at the details of the same streets over time, you can watch bigger businesses transform the local industries. "That's sort of [how] Walker Road began, for example," said Ball.

Ball says digitizing these records of Windsor history is important, "so that more people can … take advantage of what it has to offer."

The records are available through the SWODA website and on the Internet Archive, a non-profit website that catalogues free books, websites, music and more.