Thousands of historic records now available to view online
09 Feb 2021 ARCHIVED (over 3 months old) - view latest news
Descriptions of thousands of historic records are now available to view online via the Northumberland Archives online catalogue.
The catalogue contains details of over 400,000 written records held by Northumberland Archives at their Woodhorn and Berwick centres.
A further 60,000 records have now had images added to them, which can now also be viewed on the catalogue.
The records include some of the oldest documents held by the service such as manuscripts, maps and plans, photographs and printed collections.
Staff at Northumberland Archives are now working on stage 2 of this important project – to allow users to request downloadable digital copies of images in the catalogue for a fee. This part of the project has been made possible thanks to funding through the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Culture Recovery Fund.
Last year Northumberland Archives received £48, 100 from the fund, which is part of the Government’s £1.57 billion #HereforCulture package to protect the UK’s culture and heritage sectors from the economic impacts of Covid-19.
Although the archive centres are closed to the public at the moment, once Covid restrictions allow, the catalogue will also allow people to research and view records before visiting a centre.
The work is part of a plan to make the archives more accessible to a wider audience, as well as looking at new ways of generating income for the service, particularly whilst its doors are closed.
Other initiatives include developing an online shop which will allow people to purchase products and services.
Cllr Jeff Watson, cabinet member for the Archives service at Northumberland County Council said: “The Coronavirus pandemic has led to digital access to our archives and service becoming a key priority.
“Through this funding staff have been working extremely hard behind the scenes whilst our centres are closed to ensure that people now have access to hundreds of thousands of records. This will make our archives and service more easily available to a wider audience.”