Digital Collections Registry






Full Description


Collect Britain: Putting History in its Place
Find out more about:

Collection Description

Collections Associated with this Collection

Projects Associated with this Collection

Collection Information
Title: Collect Britain: Putting History in its Place
URL: http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/ External Link
Description: Collect Britain presents 90,000 images and sounds from the British Library, chosen to evoke places in the UK and beyond. It includes: over 650 recordings of English regional accents and dialects from 1950 to the present day; 1000 maps and plans from the Crace Collection, charting London's growth through three centuries; some of the world's most intriguing rarities, from our renowned philatelic collections; more than 3,000 stunning images from our illuminated manuscript collections; 130 plans and drawings of Deptford, uncovering history in and around the royal dockyards; a portrait of the Indian subcontinent, in 15,000 images from the Oriental and India Office collection; a sketchbook tour of England between 1750 and 1850 with 2,500 fantastic drawings; illustrated sheet music for piano pieces and songs from the heyday of the Victorian Music Hall; the Penny Illustrated Paper, chronicling Victorian life through 52,000 pages and thousands of images; images of Victorian Britain captured in 1,500 original early photographic book illustrations; 1,200 items presenting perspectives on Caribbean plantation life during the 18th and early 19th centuries; over 200 early wax cylinder recordings of song, music and speech from around the world; hundreds of maps of the British Isles created between 800 and 1600AD; over 2,500 watercolours, drawings and prints from King George III's vast collection; 700 wildlife recordings, portraying a vibrant sound picture of Britain's landscape; and the British landscape, shown in 1,500 illustrations taken from 19th-century topographical books.

Collect Britain is the British Library's largest digitisation project to date. The site goes live on May 21st 2003. By summer 2004 you can view and hear a staggering 100,000 images and sounds from our world-renowned collections without ever needing to visit the prestigious building in London. How did we do it? The story starts with the British Library's curators, professionals who have an in-depth understanding of certain specialised subjects. They carefully selected the maps, manuscripts, topographical drawings, photographs, rare sound recordings and even long-forgotten advertisements and music-hall songs that chart the changing face of Britain and her people. Intellectual understanding of the material which the British Library preserves on behalf of the nation then married up with state-of-the-art technology, both content management and software applications to represent and label the materials and first class web design and editorial production to bring the artifacts to life.
GEM Subjects:
Social Studies
Anthropology
World history
Subjects: Great Britain--History.
Geographic Coverage: Europe (continent)
Time Period: Middle 20th Century (1934-1967)
Early 20th Century (1901-1933)
Late 19th Century (1868-1900)
Middle 19th Century (1834-1867)
Early 19th Century (1801-1833)
Late 18th Century (1768-1800)
Middle 18th Century (1734-1767)
Early 18th Century (1701-1733)
Objects Represented: Books and pamphlets
Photographs / slides / negatives
Music (audio files)
Sheet music and scores
Oral histories (audio files)
Audio files
Maps
Format: image/jpeg
text/html
audio
Interaction with Collection: Search
Exhibit
Browse
Frequency of additions: Irregularly
Notes: British Library, 2003-
This Record Last Updated By: khage@umich.edu
This Record Last Updated On: 11/5/2007 3:44:07 PM
Hosting
Institution:
British Library
 
Associated Collections
  There are no associated collections.
Projects Associated with Digital Collection
  There are no Projects associated with this collection.

The External Link symbol indicates that the hyperlink is to a web site external to the DLF Digital Collections Registry.

The DLF Collections Registry is a collaboration among the University of Illinois Library, and the Digital Library Federation, a consortium of libraries and related agencies that are pioneering the use of electronic-information technologies to extend collections and services.

Copyright © 2002-2006. University of Illinois Board of Trustees. All Rights Reserved. Last updated on $Date: 10/11/07 2:46p $. Hosted by Grainger Engineering Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.