Digital Heritage Hub Search

LGBT Foundation is a national charity delivering advice, support and information services to lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities. This project recruited volunteers to use online tools to preserve the oral histories of LGBT activists in Greater Manchester. Volunteers were trained in oral history techniques and how to use tools such as Zoom to conduct, record and transcribe interviews.

The #CrowdCymru digital archives volunteer project was jointly run by Gwent Archives, Glamorgan Archives and Cardiff University & Special Collections. Using a newly created bi-lingual online platform developed by the National Library of Wales, #CrowdCymru invited volunteers to tag, index and transcribe documents to make them more accessible for researchers.  Although the majority of the remote volunteers came from Wales, there were also sign-ups from USA, Canada, Australia and South Korea.

The East Riding Blockdown project invited 11-16 year olds based in the East Riding of Yorkshire to contribute their thoughts and memories of life during lockdown in the Covid-19 pandemic using the Minecraft videogame. The purpose of the project was to record contemporary responses to a historically significant period and preserve the contributions as digital image files whilst introducing a new audience to the East Riding Archives.

First Choice Homes Oldham collaborated with local residents of the West Street Area in Coldhurst, Oldham, to create an online ‘place history’ platform to celebrate the 50-year period and beyond of two tower blocks: Summervale House and Crossbank House (1975 – 2022). This digital community project created a digital archive with a focus on time; enabling the local community to collaboratively research and share their local heritage while building their digital skills.

CollabArchive is a digital volunteering project led by the Nerve Centre and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund as part of the Digital Skills for Heritage initiative. The project connects new and diverse audiences with archive heritage through creativity and digital technologies, leading to sustained volunteering opportunities at PRONI.

Torre Abbey is Torbay’s most historic building complex dating from 1196. A Scheduled Monument set in 17.8 acres of land it’s been a centre of religious and artistic expression and hospitality for 800 years. It’s also an accredited museum home to an important collection. The focus of this project was to train a team of volunteers to help digitise Torre Abbey’s collection providing valuable wellbeing opportunities to the local community as well as teaching new digital skills such as scanning artworks and database entry.

CollabArchive is a digital volunteering project led by the Nerve Centre and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project connects new and diverse audiences with archive heritage through creativity and digital technologies, leading to sustained volunteering opportunities at PRONI.

Barnsley Archives hold records relating to all aspects of life in the Borough of Barnsley and its collections include newspapers, books, sound and film. This project sought to engage and upskill remote digital volunteers to help Barnsley Archives and Local Studies interpret, digitally transcribe and publicly share recently acquired sound and film collections.

Spectacle Media: Silwood Video Archive Project — the aim of this project was to open the Silwood video archive for the first time since filming began 20 years ago and invite the Silwood community to watch, comment on, and begin a participatory editing process to draw out the stories of Silwood.

Cinema Nation: Tag L8 — Cinema Nation worked with participants to create an interactive online platform that could hold community archive material from the Liverpool L8 area, alongside training resources.

Sheffield Feminist Archive (SFA): Women in Lockdown — this project aimed to document women’s experiences of the pandemic – in their own words – through written, audio, and creative accounts.

Bearwood Community Hub: Podcast: Celebrating Bearwood Women — with the support of Sandwell Community History and Archive Service (CHAS), and local community groups, this project invited women in Bearwood to add their voice to the historic record and create a new podcast: Celebrating Bearwood Women.

LGBT Foundation LTD: ‘LGBT+ Oral Histories Digital Archive’ — this project created a digital, accessible archive of LGBT+ oral histories focused on community empowerment and queer activism in Greater Manchester and beyond.

Northumberland County Council/Northumberland Archives: Preserving Cramlington Camera Club’s Digital Archive — this project worked with Cramlington Camera Club to preserve the Club’s digital archive at Northumberland Archives and involved community groups with the creation and preservation of digital photographs.

As a medium-sized heritage organisation with a valuable archive, and possible brand identity too, how do you go about planning for the digitisation of your content? This guide seeks to offer some practical advice, points for consideration, and signpost some really informative resources to get you started.

Digitisation serves a range of purposes and offers many benefits for heritage archives. As a small organisation you may be wondering how you might plan and prepare for digitisation. This is a concise guide on how to get started and what to consider.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council: The East Riding Blockdown: Contemporary Collecting in Minecraft — this project aimed to capture youth experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the East Riding Archives’ collections using the videogame Minecraft as a creative medium and platform for digital storytelling.

South London Gallery: Places Never Seen: A youth-led, digital exploration of the 1911 Festival of Empire — this project invited local young people to critically and creatively examine an example of local colonial history and to develop open access digital outputs through Wikimedia.

The Jewish Museum London: Mapping Migration: Jewish Temporary Shelter Cards — using the newly digitised Jewish Temporary Shelter (JTS) cards, this project explored how the museum could use georeferencing technologies to present information in new ways.