Digital technologies open many new opportunities for making museum collections accessible and understandable. The project partners had all embraced these to varying extents but had all identified needs that could not be met from existing resources. The creation of the Digital Resource Development Team provided a mechanism to share skills and resources and increase the overall capacity of the sector to apply the benefits of digital technology.
The project has already successfully created a wide range of resources, to great acclaim from both museum staff and the public. These resources have helped diversify audiences and increase access to collections.
New websites are being created for many of the partners and a touring exhibition (with a digital component) on the theme of textiles has been developed between partners and launched in Kirkcaldy in February. It moves to West Lothian in April. For more information see http://simplysamplers.org
A key aspect of this project is the repurposing of existing content currently held by partners into publicly accessible formats. The project has produced and continues to update a substantial quantity of freely-available digital resources for education and enjoyment including on-line exhibitions, downloadable publications, simple step by step how-tos or tutorials and has already helped a number of partners capture, edit and post videos on You Tube (http://youtube.com/museumservice). Image digitisation, manipulation and exploitation is another popular choice for training projects amongst the partners. Why not have a look at the ever-growing collection of stills available on Flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/eastlothian)
Project Officers: Angus Ferguson and Kyeran Ravenhill
E: [email protected] or [email protected]
T: 07970 753795 or 07970 736331
W: http://digitalmages.org
