JISC

Based on the Mass Observation Archive, this project will create an online resource that will inspire and assist people to record the changing history of their communities. This demonstrator project will work with at least 10 identified community heritage organisations, with a view to rolling out the resource throughout the national network of Community Archive and Heritage groups.

The Mass Observation Archive is a charitable trust in the care of the University of Sussex that consists of an unparalleled collection of materials relating to public opinion, experience and everyday life in Britain between 1937 and the mid 1950s and from 1981 to the present day.

For over 60 years, the archive has been developing questionnaires and diary-writing techniques that build up a picture of life round the country. The collection includes diaries, observational accounts, surveys and ephemera relating to a wide range of topics which represents a unique sample of public opinion and experience demonstrating that everyday life is anything but ordinary.

The University now seeks to make the Mass Observation Archive (MOA) material and techniques available to local communities throughout the UK. Currently, Mass Observation Online from Adam Matthews Digital, makes available over 110,000 images of material from the MOA. This specialist resource is currently marketed, under licence, predominantly to the HE sector within the UK, and access to it is therefore very limited.

The Mass Observation Communities Online (MOCO) project will make a selection of this material (with newly OCRed versions of the writings, if necessary) freely available online to a much wider audience for the first time and share the techniques used to collect the material over the years.

The materials in the MOA are already heavily used and promoted as a community resource, but due to the lack of accessible online surrogates this use tends to be concentrated locally via traditional forms of access. The MOCO Project will not only disseminate MOA materials and techniques far more widely, it will enable community groups around the country to submit material (text and photos) inspired by these resources, using online data-sharing techniques so that the material can be incorporated both into the MOA and into their own local online collections.

The MOCO project will be a valuable teaching tool for individuals, groups or institutions that want to expand their knowledge of Mass Observation and its techniques, but also as an inspirational resource for community organizations looking for new methods to develop and expand their own histories.