If we imagine the history of Wales as a long timeline stretching back to St David in the sixth century AD and beyond, we’re confident that JISC has digitised many, many resources that can help us better appreciate that rich culture.  We’ve picked out four highlights below and hope that students and researchers of Welsh culture and history might discover a nugget here to inspire them.

We begin in the 21^st century, where if you’re in the mood to be inspired by contemporary Welsh art you’ll find students’ work online at Galeri Cymru – unusually you can even vote on their work and leave comments, enriching the learning experience for the Coleg Harlech students.   It’s an interesting example of how an interactive website can bring together community groups who might not yet be fully engaged with one another.

Then – a step back to the 20^th century.  When Cardiff University asked people from across Wales to delve into their attics for family memorabilia from the World War One, they uncovered a host of treasures.  Those precious items have now been photographed, recorded and digitised for posterity so that what started out as individual family heirlooms have now become a shared archive describing the Welsh experience of World War One.  Browsing the resulting Welsh Voices collections is incredibly evocative – I can only imagine the mixed emotions of Albert William’s family after the twenty two year old soldier’s discharge certificate sent him home to Swansea after injuring his knee at the Battle of the Somme in 1916.  It’s soon to be part of the ambitious Theatre of Memory project (PDF) run by the National Library of Wales.  Following on from this, we’re now working to digitise a more complete picture of the Welsh experience of World War One (Rhyfel Byd 1914-1918 a’r profiad Cymreig) including 190,000 pages of printed text, archival pages, manuscript pages and photographs; 50 hours of audio; and 20 hours of audio visual materials.

If you’d like to delve back even further, Welsh Ballads online can help you access 4,000 digitised ballads, mainly dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, from the collections of the National Library of Wales and Cardiff University Library. Ballads were like newspapers for the poor at this time, sung on street corners for all to hear.  The impressive documents will be of particular interest to anyone interested in folk music, the Welsh language or the history of popular art, but these pamphlets also narrate a more widely appealing social history– for example “Y Negroes”, a ballad supporting the abolition of slavery, dating from approximately 1830.

Linking these periods together is some of the very best in Welsh scholarship on Welsh Journals Online which gives people working in institutions free access to scholarship from Wales on topics ranging across the humanities, social sciences, science and technology.

I hope you find something here to interest you – and if you have a useful digital resource for other Welsh scholars, perhaps you would share it below.  Thank you.

The Welsh experience is part of a wider international drive to share our cultural history.  For a whole world of JISC Content on Wales and other cultural history, why not search the JISC content portal

For St David’s Day this post is also available in Welsh:

Dydd Gŵyl Dewi: Ymchwilio i Gymru neu hanes Cymru?

Yn ôl Amgueddfa Cymru, un o’r gwyrthiau mwyaf bythol a briodolwyd i Dewi Sant oedd iddo godi’r ddaear dan ei draed wrth bregethu, er mwyn i’w gynulleidfa allu ei weld a’i glywed.  Mae gan Gymru draddodiad llafar cryf, llinynnau artistig a llenyddol cyfoethog, cerddoriaeth werin hanesyddol a chyfoes ac rydym yn parhau i ddathlu’r wisg draddodiadol (fel sydd i’w gweld yma ar Casgliad y Werin Cymru). Mae Casgliad y Werin Cymru yn dod â chasgliadau digidol y prif sefydliadau treftadaeth yng Nghymru at ei gilydd, ynghyd â chynnwys o amgueddfeydd, archifdai a llyfrgelloedd llai, ac mae’n le gallwch rannu’ch stori am Gymru.  Un o’r heriau rydym ni yma yn JISC yn ei hwynebu yw: sut gallwn ddefnyddio technoleg orau i helpu pobl i weld a chlywed am drysorau hanes diwylliannol pan fo llawer ohonynt yn bodoli ar ffurf hanesion, caneuon, gwrthrychau neu ddogfennau gwerthfawr, yn hytrach na thestunau unffurf?

Os ydym yn dychmygu hanes Cymru fel llinell amser faith sy’n ymestyn yn ôl i Dewi Sant yn y chweched ganrif OC a’r tu hwnt, rwy’n hyderus bod JISC wedi digido llawer iawn o adnoddau sy’n gallu ein helpu i werthfawrogi’r diwylliant cyfoethog hwnnw’n well.  Rwyf wedi dewis pedwar uchafbwynt isod ac rwy’n gobeithio y bydd y rhai sy’n astudio ac yn ymchwilio i hanes a diwylliant Cymru yn darganfod telpyn gwerthfawr yma i’w hysbrydoli.

Rydym yn dechrau yn yr 21^ain ganrif lle, os oes arnoch awydd cael eich ysbrydoli gan gelfyddyd Gymreig gyfoes, gallwch ddod o hyd i waith myfyrwyr ar-lein yn Galeri Cymru – yn anarferol iawn, gallwch bleidleisio ar eu gwaith a gadael sylwadau hyd yn oed, gan gyfoethogi’r profiad dysgu ar gyfer y myfyrwyr yng Ngholeg Harlech.  Mae’n enghraifft ddiddorol o sut gall gwefan ryngweithiol ddod â grwpiau cymunedol, nad ydynt yn ymgysylltu â’i gilydd yn llawn efallai, at ei gilydd.

Yna – cam yn ôl i’r 20^fed ganrif.  Pan ofynnodd Prifysgol Caerdydd i bobl ledled Cymru chwilota yn eu croglofftydd am bethau cofiadwy eu teuluoedd o’r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf, gwnaethant ddadorchuddio trysorau lu.  Erbyn hyn, mae’r eitemau gwerthfawr hynny wedi’u ffotograffio, eu cofnodi a’u digido ar gyfer y dyfodol, felly mae’r hyn a ddechreuodd yn drysorau teuluol wedi dod yn archif ranedig sy’n disgrifio profiad Cymru o’r Rhyfel Byd Cyntaf.  Mae pori drwy gasgliadau Welsh Voices yn arbennig o atgofus – gallaf ond dychmygu teimladau cymysg teulu Albert Williams wedi i dystysgrif ymadael y milwr dau ddeg dau oed ei anfon adref i Abertawe ar ôl iddo anafu ei ben-glin ym Mrwydr y Somme ym 1916.

Os hoffech ymchwilio ymhellach yn ôl, gall Baledi Cymru ar-lein eich helpu i ddod o hyd i 4,000 o faledi wedi’u digido, yn dyddio o’r 18^fed a’r 19^eg ganrif yn bennaf, o gasgliadau Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru a Llyfrgell Prifysgol Caerdydd.  Roedd baledi fel papurau newydd ar gyfer y tlodion yn yr oes hon, a oedd yn cael eu canu ar gornel y stryd i bawb eu clywed.  Bydd y dogfennau nodedig hyn o ddiddordeb arbennig i unrhyw un sydd â diddordeb mewn cerddoriaeth werin, yr iaith Gymraeg neu hanes celfyddyd gyfoes, ond mae’r pamffledi hyn hefyd yn adrodd hanes cymdeithasol ag apêl ehangach – er enghraifft “Y Negroes”, sef baled sydd o blaid dileu caethwasiaeth, sy’n dyddio o oddeutu 1830.

Yn cysylltu’r cyfnodau hyn at ei gilydd, mae peth o’r ysgolheictod Cymreig gorau erioed ar Cylchgronau Cymru Ar-lein, sy’n rhoi mynediad rhad ac am ddim at ysgolheictod o Gymru ar bynciau sy’n cynnwys y dyniaethau, gwyddorau cymdeithasol, gwyddoniaeth a thechnoleg i bobl sy’n gweithio mewn athrofeydd.

Rwy’n gobeithio y dewch o hyd i rywbeth yma sydd o ddiddordeb i chi – ac os oes gennych adnodd digidol defnyddiol ar gyfer ysgolheigion eraill yng Nghymru, efallai yr hoffech ei rannu isod.  Diolch.

by Paola Marchionni and Nicola Yeeles

If you have any questions about what JISC is doing to digitise Welsh resources, or to find out more about JISC’s investment in econtent, please email Paola at p.marchionni@jisc.ac.uk

Image from The First World War Poetry Digital Archive, University of Oxford www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit © The Imperial War Museum

The legacy of World War One in terms of social, economic and political global change cannot be overstated; it changed the individual’s view of society and their place within it with far-reaching effects into their future and our past. In the words of H.G. Wells: ‘This is the end and the beginning of an age’.

To mark this event in international history is therefore a key priority for custodians of heritage and educators alike.

We’ve already made considerable efforts to preserve online the memories and writings of those active during the First World War.  The popular Great War Poetry Archive was funded by JISC to digitise precious documents relating to the poetry of the Great War – including Wilfred Owen’s original notes for the well known poem Dulce et Decorum Est.

It also includes podcasts with eminent historians and veterans including the writer and broadcaster Ian Hislop talking about his grandfather’s experience in action and why he is so ‘obsessed’ with the First World War.  The Serving Soldier collection might also interest you as a way of finding out about the lives of soldiers from 1899 to 1918, a period which spans the Second Boer War, Younghusband Expedition and World War One.

But now it’s time to commemorate the 2014 anniversary.  Higher and further education has a  unique part to play in the WW1 commemoration because it can offer an academic appraisal and reappraisal of themes, events and perceptions.  To help people in education who are studying the period, we are promoting a joined-up approach across many different organisations that currently hold audiovisual, images, text based works and film relating to the First World War. JISC wants to explore how providing this in a more seamless way could help those working in education and research to access the resources. So as a result we’re planning two activities:

• JISC WW1 Discovery programme- to aggregate digital content such as films from a range of digital collections and find new and innovative ways of presenting this content for the benefit of education and research on WW1.

• JISC WW1 OER project- to create innovative Open Educational Resources around WW1 relevant across disciplines for embedding in teaching and learning using a range of content pertaining to WW1 in the UK and internationally, ready for release in March 2012

JISC’s overriding goal for both activities is to work for researchers, teachers and students to produce digital content and resources that are comprehensive, open and sustainable, but that answer differing, specific needs within higher and further education.  The plans are underpinned by a common strategic ‘direction of travel’ which is outlined most clearly in the JISC Statement of Intent.

I look forward to updating you further as these projects progress.

To find out more about what’s planned visit the blog.