The Mills Archive is currently featured both in the news and in the case study section of the National Archives’ website. Read on to find out why…
Recently we went live with a brand new online catalogue – in addition to our new website – which uses open-source software called AtoM or “Access to Memory”
The reason we are being featured as a case study? Representatives from the National Archives came to visit us and were so impressed that they later approached us to ask if we would write a case study about our new online catalogue system so that other archives can learn from what we have achieved.
By now a number of you will have used our new catalogue to search for images and documents, and I think you will agree that the system is much more user friendly and attractive than its predecessor. What’s more, by using AtoM we are ensuring that we are meeting certain archival standards, such as using data that conforms with ISAD (G), or the “International Standards of Archival Description”.
Moving to using AtoM and importing all our 40,000 or so images and documents represents years of hard work on the part of our Archivist Nathanael Hodge, supported by volunteers, to improve our archival methods and make our material more accessible to the public for research and learning.
When the National Archives representatives visited us, they were also interested in how we work with our Heritage Partners and how we are increasingly hosting the collections of mills on our online catalogue, effectively providing them with their own digital archive. They can even customise the look and feel of their area by changing the colour scheme and logo to fit in with their own websites. Below is a screenshot of the digital archive of one of our Heritage Partners, the Heage Windmill Society:
To read the case study and find our more about what it took behind-the-scenes to make the work a success, please click here to be taken to the page on the National Archives’ website.
You can also get directly to our catalogue by clicking here.