This is a brief announcement of a major development. We will be saying
more later in the month, but the members of this list includes many people
who have been involved with the Great Britain Historical GIS project over
the years, and quite a few who have actively helped us. Some of you may
have been wondering why we have been rather quiet for quite some time; a
few of you knew why, and have like us been waiting for specific news. So ....
Today, the New Opportunities Fund, one of the main distributors of funding
from the UK National Lottery, made the following announcement:
"£50 Million Fuels Learning Revolution for All
£50 million in awards to more than 150 UK national and local organisations,
creating a 'communities bank' of Internet learning resources, is being
announced by the New Opportunities Fund, a lottery 'good cause'
distributor, at the Science Museum, London, on 2nd July.
The Fund's multi-million announcement gives the green-light for the
development of a swathe of online learning resources across the four
nations, converting a wealth of UK achievement and heritage across science,
culture and social diversity into digital format.
Through the Digitisation awards by the Fund, people in every walk of life
in communities across the UK will be able to connect to almost limitless
gigabytes of resources ranging from the treasure-store collections of
leading museums, galleries and libraries to priceless archives of film and
the arts. The funding will help give people access to the full tapestry of
UK society, past and present, including skills and health sites, and even
allowing people take virtual walks through local and national heritage
locations."
(for more of this stuff, see http://www.nof.org.uk/tempdigit/index.htm)
Sadly, we have not been given the whole Pnds 50m, but we have been awarded
Pnds 620,000 (about $US 900,000) which will extend our core team through to
September 2004. NB this funding is shared between the University of
Portsmouth, the Queen's University Belfast and the University of Leeds. We
are part of a larger consortium led by the British Library, who have
themselves been awarded over Pnds 3m. for a project called "InPlace", and
part of our own role is to help make the BL's content geographically
accessible.
Please watch for later messages saying more about what we will actually be
doing -- but obviously this is not a conventional academic research project.
Best wishes,
Humphrey Southall
======================================================
Humphrey Southall
Reader in Geography/Director, Great Britain Historical GIS Project
Department of Geography, University of Portsmouth
Buckingham Building, Lion Terrace, Portsmouth PO1 3HE
Until September 2001:
Visiting Scholar, St. Catharine's College,
Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 1RL
Portsmouth HGIS team: (023) 9284 2500
Cambridge Tel: (01223) 523854
Mobile: (0796) 808 5454
|
