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Truth and Reconciliation Commission Reports

The NNELS team has produced (see our news release) all of the reports from Canada's Residential Schools, The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015 and 2016) in accessible formats. If you have any questions about these books, our process, or us in general, please contact us.

Available Books

The original files are available from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) as PDF documents in English and in PDF documents in French. Print editions of the Executive Summary are available from Lorimer Books, and the rest of the volumes are available in print from McGill-Queen's University Press.

Who can Use these Books?

Anyone. The Truth and Reconciliation Commision (TRC) of Canada placed the original reports in the public domain. Since our formats are simply copies in different formats, they are also in the public domain. No NNELS or library accounts are needed to download these books for any purpose.

About the Formats

  • DAISY: an open format designed to be a complete replacement for a printed book. Our DAISY files for TRC reports are recorded using synthetic, or computer audio, and so they are fully navigable and searchable if you have the right tools. You can even check the footnotes. There is free software for playing a DAISY file for most computers and laptops, and DAISY files can also be burned to CD for playing on a DAISY player (see below for "How to use these books").
  • MP3: if you require MP3 audio files, download the DAISY files and copy the MP3 audio files to a new folder for transfer to your device, or playing using your computer's built-in audio player.
  • e-text: these are text files in Rich Text Format (RTF) which open with just about any word-processing or text-to-speech program. Due to the complexility of the layout of these books, they may not display as expected in programs other than Microsoft Word; specifically, the pagination and endnotes may not display properly.
  • PDF: PDF versions of the TRC reports are available from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation website.

How to Use these Books

There are several options for listening to the audio or using the e-text for these books:

  • Download DAISY file to a computer and then burn to a CD for playing on a DAISY player (except Volume 1, parts 1 & 2 which are too large to fit onto a disc: please contact NNELS Support if you wish to burn these volumes to CD);
  • Download DAISY or e-text to a computer and listen or transfer using a USB key;
  • Download and transfer DAISY or e-text to an SD card (specific instructions for a Victor Stream);
  • Listen to the books on a computer or laptop: we recommend Amis for Windows, and Emerson for Macs;
  • Download to a smartphone or tablet (see instructions for your operating system);

If nothing we suggest here works for you, or you experience any problems with the books or files, please contact us.

How We Make these Books

Each of these books takes many hours to produce in accessible formats.

First, we convert the PDF files we find on the NCTR website and use free software to turn those documents into text files (you can try this yourself with the TRC PDF files, or other documents). Then comes the first of two big jobs: editing the e-text to correct errors from the conversion process. One of the most time-consuming parts of this process is reinserting all of the endnotes to make them navigable. Once the document has been edited, we save it as a DOCX file and it becomes the e-text file for the website.

Then comes the second big job: converting the e-text into DAISY, an audio format. We use a special plug-in for Microsoft Word to convert the e-text to DAISY XML (coded text), and then use another software on a Mac computer to convert the DAISY XML to DAISY audio. The process includes correcting any errors reported during each conversion step. Once we have an audio file, we test-listen to parts of the book. When we are satisfied that the book works properly, we upload the file to the NNELS catalogue and announce it through our channels.

Additional Resources

Thank You for Reading.

For more information about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, please visit the National Centre for Truth and Reconcilation website.

This page last updated: Feb. 21, 2017.