First World War poetry digital archive
Download the full report
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive project has digitised and made freely accessible over 4500 items relating to some of the major British poets of the First World War as well as a wealth of contextual material from the Imperial War Museum and National Archives (audio, video and photographs). In addition the project has launched The Great War Archive, over 6500 items submitted by the general public originating from this historic event.
Executive Summary
See the First World War poetry digital archive collection
Intended for researchers, lecturers, teachers, and students across the educational sector, the freely accessible web site brings together items that have previously been hidden away or difficult to access, and has also reassembled dispersed collections. It offers a range of browse and search functionality to facilitate easy item discovery, tools to aid research and teaching, and contextual information to provide a background to the material that it contains. Taking into account the continuing prominence of the First World War in literature and history courses in compulsory, further, and higher education the archive also offers a range of educational materials to support the teaching and learning of this subject, including seven interactive online tutorials, podcasts, audio tours, resource packs and a portal to other web resources. A Path Creation Tool was also developed and implemented to enable users to create their own annotated trails through the archival contents and beyond.
The processes that the project used to engage the user throughout, and to facilitate the collection of items from the general public, also provide valuable insights for other projects. In addition the web system built to collect and catalogue items submitted by the general public for The Great War Archive has been released as open source for other projects wishing to undertake similar activities.