JISC Digitisation Programme: An Overview of Projects
The JISC Digitisation Programme was launched in 2004, with funding of £10m divided between six projects. This was followed by a second phase, worth £12m, for 16 projects running from 2007 to 2009.
The collections capture a wide variety of aspects of UK life, from cabinet papers to first world war poetry, radio news to East End music hall, political cartoons to British borders, and in a diverse range of media, including sound, film, images, journals, newspapers, maps, theses, pamphlets and cartoons.
For researchers, these projects not only provide valuable resources in themselves but, taken together, open up whole new vistas for study. For example, an historian of 19th century Britain can now search through two million pages of historic newspapers, seven significant pamphlet collections (totalling one million pages), while being able to reference a wealth of contextual social data through the Vision of Britain and Histpop websites. A postgraduate studying key events in 20th century British politics can analyse the relevant cabinet papers, see how the politicians involved were portrayed in the political cartoons of the time, and download video clips of news items covering important events.
For those involved in learning and teaching, these collections provide high-quality, rights-cleared material to download and adapt in lecture hall, seminar room, library or hall of residence. Again, placing the collections together allows new avenues to be opened up. Students exploring the visual arts can study the drawings, sketches and paintings from the Pre-Raphaelite Resource Site and then listen to artists’ own opinions on their work and lives via interviews in the Archival Sound Recordings.
Through these pioneering digitisation projects JISC is rapidly transforming the education and research landscape in the UK by realising the enormous potential of online resources. The range, depth and quality of the digitisation projects featured in the following pages are testament to its success.
Alastair Dunning
Programme Manager, JISC Digitisation Programme