Access Hampshire Heritage - An Archives for All Project
Organisation: Hampshire Archives and Local Studies
Grant Award: Your Heritage (£22,700)
Local history is more popular than ever, as evidenced by the number of TV programmes and books on the subject, and the Archives and Local Studies service at Hampshire Record Office regularly hosts introductory sessions for beginners. Feedback has shown they are useful in getting people started in using archives, and that there is a demand for longer sessions. This project provides the experience of a beginners’ session online, creating opportunities for more people to start using archives, taking as long as they need, without the need to travel to Winchester.
Access Hampshire Heritage aims to introduce sources for local history to those unfamiliar with archives, which they can investigate from the comfort zones of their own home, library, or any community centre with internet access. This will encourage them to visit the archives and also to explore what material is available to them locally in community collections.
Outcomes
The project aimed to increase opportunities for learning about local history, and also to widen access to collections. This involved digitising 5,000 items and making them available through the Record Office website and its online catalogue. The items for digitisation were drawn from the collections held both by the Record Office and by partner groups in Liss, Denmead and Buriton. They represent examples of typical sources for local history for different types of community across Hampshire. Text alongside the images describes how these sources can be used to explore the history and development of any community.
The online resource is supplemented by a touring exhibition and accompanying beginners’ workshops. The exhibition will tour venues around the county during 2008 and 2009, including Liss, Denmead and Buriton, the partner communities. Most of the venues will also be holding a half day workshop on getting started in community history.
The grant paid for a digitisation technician for one year, who created the 5,000 images, and, inspired by her contact with archives, went on to be artist in residence at the Record Office as a subsequent project. It also paid for the exhibition panels and accompanying leaflet.
Volunteers from the partner groups selected material from their collections to be digitised, and added descriptions to the catalogue database. Other volunteers linked the images to the catalogue records. In all, 208 volunteer hours were contributed to the project. The three groups were at different stages in the development of their own collections, and the project was a useful experience both for them in seeing how the others had approached this work and in learning about Record Office resources, and for archivists in learning about the different needs of community groups.
The web site is available at http://www3.hants.gov.uk/hampshire-heritage.htm
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