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BT's
archives are recognised by UNESCO and Arts Council England as
internationally significant, and an important part of the UK's
cultural heritage. The collection documents the history of the UK's role
in the development of telecommuncations and the
impact of this technology on society
Jisc
- who provide digital services for UK
education and research - funded a collaborative project between Coventry University, BT and The National
Archives to create a searchable digital resource of almost half a million photographs,
images, documents and items of correspondence preserved by BT since the
company's foundation in 1846.
The
project was one of the largest of its kind, certainly amongst business
archives, and a unique collaboration between the private, public and
academic sectors. It brought together those with expertise in heritage
management and serious games technology, and academic experts in design,
language, computing, education and learning resources.
The
presentation will cover the background to the project, its launch in 2011,
and the intellectual control and logistics required to prepare, digitise
and present online almost 500k scanned documents.
The paper
will also explore the different objectives of the three partners in the
collaboration, how far these were met, and the many lessons learnt over the
18 months of the project,
It will
also include a description of the features of the final product launched in
July 2013, http://www.bt.com/btdigitalarchives, and aspirations for taking
the project further.
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