‘Welsh Voices’ on BBC web site
The JISC-funded Welsh Voices project has provided content for a new gallery of images on the BBC web site commemorating the 92nd anniversary of Armistice Day.
Welsh Voices is part of the JISC Developing community content programme which aims to establish partnerships between the Higher Education sector and community groups, organisations and the general public in order to curate or create new digital content for the benefit of all groups.
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Digitisation project is ‘Underexposed’
Following recent discoveries in the John Rylands Library Special Collections, UNDEREXSPOSED is an exhibition in Collaboration with The Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI), celebrating the life of one of Manchester’s early photographic pioneers, J.T. Chapman.
Chemist, inventor and photographer, Chapman invented some of the processes that were to become standard in early photography.
However, he is widely omitted from history books as he published his formula under the pseudonym ‘Ostendo non Ostento’ (I show, not boast).
Working from Deansgate, Manchester, Chapman also invented and sold his own cameras and projectors.
The exhibition also showcases a selection of glass plate negatives, recently discovered and linked to the Langford Brooke family of Mere Hall in Cheshire, which have been cleaned, re-housed and digitised by CHICC.
CHICC is The Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, a JISC funded project to develop a Centre for Heritage Digitisation, based within the University of Manchester.
The John Rylands Library will be holding a series of events associated with the exhibition, for more information please contact 0161 306 0555 or email jrul.events@manchester.ac.uk
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Strandlines Digital Communities
The Stand is one of the oldest streets in London. It follows the line of the Roman road of Akeman, and lies on the Saxon boundary of Aldwych.
The Strand is located in the centre of London. It is the eye in a storm of diverse people, communities, societies and organisations that inhabit this busy thoroughfare.
A new project from Kings College, London will work closely with a range of local communities to help represent life on the Strand in ways meaningful to those communities, and to the academic community of Kings.
Strandlines will imaginatively explore the significance of place in people’s lives: Using academic expertise to suggest frameworks, especially life-writing, social media and oral history, to enable connection and engagement between the different Strand communities.
The project will create an online, interactive resource documenting life and work on the Strand over the past 200 years, through stories, audio and photographs. It will combine material taken from the College’s own archive, Westminster City Archives and elsewhere with people’s own photographs and memories, captured through a grassroots digitisation project.
To find out more about this project you can visit the Strandlines website. The Strandlines Digital Community is part of a larger project aiming to “explore lives on the Strand – past, present and creative”.
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Welsh Ballads website launches
The four thousand 18th and 19th century ballads that make up the Welsh Ballads Digitisation project at Cardiff University have gone live on a new website.
The project has made around 15,000 pages of rare Welsh ballads available online. The collection also includes some of the ballads sung and available digitally.
The ballads give an unparalleled glimpse into Welsh society during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Cardiff University’s Dr Wyn James stated that the ballads:
“were the daily newspapers for the poor throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and were sold cheaply and widely at markets, fairs, and villages. They communicated news on local matters and overseas events of the day”.
The ballads launch has also attracted some interest nationally, with BBC Wales reporting on the story online. To find out more you can visit the Ballads webpages at the National Library of Wales.
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JISC projects now available on Twitter
You can now follow all the JISC innovation projects as they are funded and added to our PIMS database.
Still in an experimental stage, the feed allows all newly funded projects to appear on the Twitter feed: @jiscprojects
Follow new JISC projects here: http://twitter.com/jiscprojects
Please bear in mind this is still an experimental service, but it will be smoothed out and improved in the coming weeks.
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New Musical Resource – Unheard and forgotten for 60 years
Over 2000 recordings by British and Irish Muscians have been digitised and made available online in a project by Kings College, London.
The Musicains of Britain and Ireland 1900-1950 project is allowing listeners and researchers to rediscover leading musicians who were once household names.
Most of the recordings are making their first public appearance since they came out on shellac over 60 years ago and are linked to a range of research resources about the history of recording to help people make the most of the collection.
The discs were selected specifically to highlight world-class British and Irish performers recorded between 1900 and 1950, especially artists neglected by the newly-formed EMI after the merger of the Gramophone Co and Columbia in 1931.
For more information about this project and to listen to some samples,visit the JISC webpages
All the tracks and many more are all available on the CHARM website.
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Serving Soldier Collection Launch
This week saw the launch of the Serving Soldier project at Kings College, London.
The project is providing online access to unique original documents and photographs held by the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives.
The project takes the multi-faceted role of the soldier as its central theme: Exposing a proportion of little known material (hidden stories) and provide a body of material of contemporary relevance to researchers, students and today’s serving soldiers.
Furthermore, the project has also commissioned and produced a play which was performed at Shrivenham Officers training camp.
The play entitled ‘Fighting Your Corner’ draws on historical collections (diaries, reports and first had accounts) relating to previous conflicts in Afghanistan.
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New Community Collection Project looking for submissions
‘How easily can treasure
buried in the ground, gold hidden
however skilfully, escape from any man!
Seamus Heaney (transl.) Beowulf
A new exemplar community collection is now live: Project Woruldhord.
The project is trialling the processes and the community contributed collection (‘CoCoCo’) software being formed by the RunCoCo project.
The project is trying to collect any material that would be of help to people who wish to find out more about the Anglo-Saxon period of history and the language and literature.
The project is looking for images, audio/video recordings, handouts, essays, articles, presentations, spreadsheets, databases, and so on.
In particular it is hoped teachers/researchers will contribute teaching material they are happy to share with others.
The most important page to get started is:
http://poppy.nsms.ox.ac.uk/woruldhord
This takes you through the simple to use submission process where you can upload your object and provide some basic information about it.
If you have any questions please email the project: woruldhord@oucs.ox.ac.uk
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The Economics of Copyright and Digitisation
The Strategic Advisory Board on Intellectual Property (SABIP) have published a report this week entitled “The Economics of Copyright and Digitisation: A Report on the Literature and the Need for Further Research” .
The report undertakes a critical overview of the theoretical and empirical economic literature on copyright and unauthorised copying.
This report highlights two issues which are in particular need of further research in order to inform copyright policy:
- How does digital copying affect the supply of copyright works?
- Does the copyright system entail obstacles to desirable aspects of technological transition?
On the issue of copyright and digitisation the report states: It is certain that digitisation will continue to alter the cost structure and demand for many copyright works and that new related products and services will emerge.
The full report is available to download.
SABIP would be grateful to receive any feedback you may have on the report.
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Jane Austen Manuscripts Online
The AHRC funded project Jane Austen’s fiction manuscripts represent the first significant body of holograph evidence surviving for any British novelist.
They represent every stage of her writing career and a variety of physical states: working drafts, fair copies, and handwritten publications for private circulation.
Digitization enables their virtual reunification and will provides scholars with the first opportunity to make simultaneous ocular comparison of their different physical and conceptual states, facilitating intimate and systematic study of Austen’s working practices across her career.
Many of the Austen manuscripts are frail; open and sustained access has long been impossible for conservation and location reasons.
The digital edition will include in the first instance all Jane Austen’s known fiction manuscripts and any ancillary materials held with them.
Visit the project website for more information.