Have you ever wondered about including an online exhibition, or other digital resource involving collections, in your research project? Do you want to find out more about what these involve?

 We are pleased to invite you to a Collections and Digitisation workshop on Wednesday 29 March 2023, 2pm-4pm at the MERL, run jointly by UMASCS (University Museums, Archives, and Special Collections Services) and the Digital Humanities Hub.

 The workshop will help you gain first-hand understanding of what is involved in the digitisation process directly from the staff that would support collections-based research, to inform the inclusion of digital resources in your project proposals.

Programme:

• Introduction to digitisation, sustainability and preservation
• Collections research themes
• MERL Online Exhibition templates
• Case Study – Modernist Archives Publishing Project
• Current Digitisation Projects at UMASCS
• Tour of the Digitisation Equipment

The aim is to help you consider what you want to or could digitise and why, who your audience is, what level of images you might need and how you might want them to interact with the rest of your resource, including text.

We will also discuss the pre-existing solutions available to you if you want to include an online exhibition mainly for purposes of external engagement. Linking this in with collections research themes, and using templates based on the MERL’s website, will integrate your project with other UoR work and guarantee your resource will remain sustainable, without risk of loss or the need for manual updates.

Unsure whether collections-based research is suited to your work? For more information and ideas, have a look at our Working with Collections guide.

Workshop details:

Date: Wednesday 29 March 2023

Time: 14:00-16:00

Where: MERL (Museum of English Rural Life), Redlands Road [for confirmation of exact venue please sign up]

Who: Academic, technical and project staff based in all H&C divisions

Capacity: 30

If you would like to attend, RSVP to Olivia Thompson, Digital Humanities Officer o.j.r.thompson@reading.ac.uk by 23 March 2023.

Please also get in touch if you have any questions about the workshop or if you cannot attend but would be interested in training or advice on these subjects.

This event is in-person only, but resources will be made available afterwards. If you are unable to attend this iteration of the workshop, it will be run again in the future.

Please note this workshop is for H&C staff, it is not for PhD students. If you have any interested supervisees, there will be a separate workshop on Digital Scholarship with Collections for graduate students: please get in touch with Dr Rhi Smith, Director of UMASCS Academic Learning and Engagement (r.smith@reading.ac.uk).