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Webwatch |
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Webwatch |
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www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk, which has been running for eight years, has just won the Community section in the international ‘Best of the Web’ competition for museum websites. The site has featured before in Webwatch. It collects photos, memories, knowledge and views of the city, past and present. It has grown to nearly 9,000 pages, receives 1,000 visitors a day, and receives dozens of new online contributions from the public each week. It remains an impressive site and is well worth a visit. www.communitysites.co.uk is the place to go if you would like to emulate Brighton and Hove. They specialise in building websites for museums, archives and community projects and groups. Their most recent venture is www.livinghere.org.uk, which is a living history project for the Exeter area to the west of the River Exe. The site has some fantastic 360° panoramas which go up and down as well as around. They carry a warning that they can make you dizzy and it’s true! www.ourgreatyarmouth.org.uk is the website of the ‘Our Town’ project and is maintained by volunteers working with staff from the Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service. If it looks familiar it’s because the volunteers worked with www.communitysites.co.uk to create the site. The project officially ended in March 2008, but there are plans for an exhibition at the Time and Tide Museum of Great Yarmouth Life. In the meantime, the website is well worth a visit. www.deaneroadcemetery.com records the history of a Jewish cemetery in the Kensington area of Liverpool and the activities of a group of dedicated volunteers who are working hard to restore it. I really enjoyed discovering a place I would never otherwise know or care about. That I found this site is thanks to the blog of Liverpool city councillor Louise Baldock (http://louisebaldock.blogspot.com). www.collectionstrust.org.uk was until recently www.mda.org.uk (which is still on the web). What was the Museum Documentation Trust has re-branded itself as the Collection Trust and continues to promote the idea ‘that everybody everywhere should have the right to access and benefit from cultural collections’. The website is primarily aimed at museum professionals and reflecting contemporary trends, including jargon. Given its stated aim it is a pity that much of the language seems alien and elitist. Let’s hope this is just a temporary blip. www.savedreamland.co.uk is the website of the campaign group trying to save one of Britain's most famous seaside amusement parks from demolition. The park in Margate, Kent, which opened in 1920, is home to the Grade II listed Scenic Railway roller coaster, the oldest operating roller coaster in the country and Britain's first listed amusement park ride. The park closed in 2003 and on 7 April 2008 the enormity of the challenge facing the campaign group increased when about 25% of the structure and the workshop housing all the original trains were destroyed in a fire. At the present time the website is being updated daily. www2.stmartin-in-the-fields.org is the website of St Martin in the Field, Trafalgar Square, London. Work on a £36m refurbishment has just finished. There are free guided tours most Thursdays at 11.30am. See the website for more details. www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/ continues to develop and has become an impressive website with lots of information which will be of interest to local historians. Well worth another look if you haven’t been there for a while. www.parksandgardens.ac.uk/ is a new web resource and database devoted to the historic parks, gardens and designed green spaces in the British Isles (excluding Eire) and is aimed at anyone who wants to find out more about historic parks and gardens. It is still in the early stages of development, so there aren’t that many entries. I admit to a personal interest as I have a personal blog about our local park at www.parkviews.blogspot.com. |
18 April 2008 |
