JISC

Rarely seen 19th century slides of Alice in Wonderland plus images on empire, the Great Exhibition and science are freely available to download for educational purposes for the first time.

The beautiful magic lantern slides from around 1900 tell the story of Alice as seen by pre-cinema audiences who would have gathered to enjoy the projections narrated by a storyteller.

These and thousands of other insights into the Victorian period are now accessible online courtesy of a JISC project to digitise a nationally important collection of Victorian culture at the University of Exeter.

Ben Showers, programme manager at JISC, says, "We’d now like to encourage teachers and researchers to go online and use these images, manuscripts and ephemera to help forge new areas of research and enrich the teaching experience for students."

The website repository is a place where researchers from across the university can deposit and share their collections to find new ways of connecting resources.

Ben explains, “A history department could share images that the art department don't know existed, but that might help transform their research. This space will allow universities and colleges to better highlight and expose their resources for teaching and research.”

Digital Collections Online features artefacts from the university’s Bill Douglas Centre for the history of cinema and popular culture, as well as precious manuscripts and ephemera from the rare book and archive collections.

Dr Jessica Gardner, acting assistant director of library and research support at the university said, ”Exeter has outstanding library and museum special collections rich in the subject of Victorian culture.  Our students have a unique opportunity to access the originals when they come to Exeter seminars where they enjoy the opportunity to handle and explore many of the original artefacts, and experience the best of the collections through the experience of world-class researchers.”

From the comfort of their own PC or in the classroom, anyone can now search for thousands of images of historic popular culture, from Queen Victoria to Bovril adverts and boy scouts.  Jessica added, ”Thanks to the funding from JISC everyone can now enjoy these treasures online wherever they are, on all our campuses and across the world.  Creating this online facility to view the Victorian collection plays a significant role in the university’s commitment to sharing its treasures with the public.”

Visit Digital Collections Online