FFHS-NEWS New ways of discovering resources

[News from the Federation of Family History Societies]

New ways of discovering resources

 

The Resource Discovery Development programme is a package of changes taking
place over the next year that will have far-reaching effects on The National
Archives and its users.

The first part of the programme to reach completion is the launch of the new
'Labs' section of The National Archives website. This is an area where the
organisation can test prototypes with the public, get feedback and develop
further ideas. The section is now live, and new products and services will
be added over time.

As a starting point on Labs, the programme team has geotagged a collection
of photographs taken by John Dixon Scott (INF 9). This contains around
13,000 photographs taken around the British Isles in the 1930s and 1940s.
Dixon Scott was concerned by the pace of change after the First World War,
and wanted to record as fully as possible the natural beauty of the
landscape. He also took photographs of towns, buildings and people, and it
is because the collection is so broad that it is so remarkable and
important.

'Geotagging' involves linking sources in our collection to maps, so that by
clicking on a place on a map, the user is taken to a file that relates to
that place. The user can also search by

place name.

 

Watch out for further updates about the programme in future issues and try
out the website here: http://labs.nationalarchives.gov.uk/wordpress/

 

C Crown copyright 2010 - reproduced with permission from TNA's Archive
sector update Summer 2010

 

I have been looking at the photos taken in places that I know, and it is
fascinating to see how some of the places have barely changed, while others
are quite different.

 

Roger Lewry

FFHS Archives Liaison

archives.liaison at ffhs.org.uk

 

The Federation of Family History Societies is a Company Limited by Guarantee

Company Number 2930189 (England & Wales) - Registered Charity Number 1038721

Registered Office: Artillery House, 15 Byrom Street, Manchester, England M3
4PF

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://ffhs-lists.org.uk/pipermail/ffhs-news_ffhs-lists.org.uk/attachments/20100723/3174ebdc/attachment.html>