John Delaney, of the (UK) Coal Authority has sent me the following update
on their current archive projects -
The Access to Mineral Heritage website is operational and can be accessed
at www.mineral.org.uk At present it focuses on collections in Scotland and
the North West of England, but it will continue to be added to over the
coming years. The AMH team is working in partnership with collection owners
and only publishes information with owners approval. Further enhancements
to the website will also take place. The next phase of work will focus on
individual item level descriptions.
John is asking for our views on the site - if you have accessed it, please
post opinions on the list.
Nearer to home the Authority now has electronically copied some 33,500
abandonment plans which can be viewed at the Authority's Mining Heritage
Centre at Mansfield. The Authority has also had the NCB/British Coal
photographic collection held by The National Archive at Kew electronically
copied. Some 22,000 photographs can now be viewed on six dedicated pc
screens at Mansfield. This collection continues to be added to and
ultimately up to 60,000 NCB/BCC photographs will be able to be viewed.
Photographers from outside British Coal are also expressing an interest in
having their collections incorporated into this collection with
acknowledgements.
The Authority opened its virtual library for viewing the photographs on 1
June 2004. The six screens available are initially being offered to members
of the public with 1½ hour slots. The opening times are as follows:
Monday - Friday
9.00 - 10.30am
10.45 - 12.15pm
1.30 - 3.00pm
3.15 - 4.45pm
Screens must be booked in advance by contacting the Mining Heritage Centre
on 01623 638233 or 01623 638235. Booking to view the abandonment plans can
also be made on these numbers.
It is proposed ultimately to make both collections available to view over
the internet, but only when the majority of people have access to
sufficiently powerful pc's with broadband.
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Dr Peter Claughton,
Blaenpant Morfil, nr. Rosebush, Clynderwen, Pembrokeshire, Wales SA66 7RE.
Tel. 01437 532578; Fax. 01437 532921; Mobile 07831 427599
University of Exeter - School of Historical, Political and Sociological
Studies
(Centre for South Western Historical Studies)
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Co-owner - mining-history e-mail discussion list.
See http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/files/mining-history/ for details.
Mining History Pages - http://www.exeter.ac.uk/~pfclaugh/mhinf/
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