The British Library (BL) has unveiled Collect Britain, a £3.25m digitisation project, putting 100,000 unique and rare items from its collections on the web.
The site, which is free and aimed at users of all ages and abilities, spans 1,000 years of history and includes maps, photographs, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, newspapers, wildlife recordings from the UK, regional dialects and ethnographic recordings from Asia and Africa.
All images and sounds are supported by explanatory texts from the BL's curators.
Users will be able to build their own folders of images and sounds over time, enabling them to develop a personal resource tool. All images can be zoomed in to allow users to view the smallest of details. Folders can also be emailed to colleagues and friends.
The collection is divided into 18 subject sub-sections, with a new resource being added every month. Users can sign up to receive email alerts when new content is added.
By entering their postcode or key terms for favourite subjects, users can also be sure to be notified when new content matching their area of interest is added to the collections.
Examples of the resource sections include The Crace collection of maps of London's old East End, literary landscapes, penny illustrated papers, Victorian popular music collections and British topographical drawings.
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