Some list memebrs may be interested in this:

Four thousand images from the Design Council Slide Collection 
<http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/DCSC> have been launched online 
today, providing a unique insight into the history of British design and 
its promotion by the UK government from the 1940s to the early 1990s.

The Design Council was established in 1944 and is the UK's national 
strategic body for design.  The images relate closely to the changing 
scope and policies of the Council over a period of almost fifty years, 
providing valuable visual evidence of the ways in which design has been 
evaluated and promoted throughout this period.

They show a wide variety of products such as tableware, furniture, 
lighting, toys, domestic appliances, textiles, wallpapers, office 
equipment, engineering components and machinery, as well as other areas 
of design such as architecture, town planning, interior design, graphic 
design and corporate identity.

The collection also contains many unique images that record the 
Council's own activities and initiatives, such as its annual award 
scheme and the exhibitions it organised or contributed to in the UK and 
abroad, including 'Britain Can Make It' and the 'Festival of Britain'.

An illustrated online guide to the collection has also been launched 
today.  The guide aims to indicate the strengths of the collection, 
enabling users to exploit it more fully as a resource for learning and 
research.

'The collection is an incredibly rich resource for anyone interested in 
design' says David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council.  'In 
particular, it demonstrates the Design Council's long track record of 
promoting the use of design to strengthen the UK's economy and improve 
society.'

The slide collection was transferred to the Manchester Metropolitan 
University in 1995, and since then a series of digitisation projects 
have resulted in over 13,000 images (nearly two-thirds of the 
collection) being made available online through the Visual Arts Data 
Service (VADS).

The expansion of the Design Council Slide Collection on VADS is one 
feature of the new collections and enriched website that has been funded 
by JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) as part of its pioneering 
digitisation programme.  JISC Digitisation Programme Officer, Ben 
Showers, says:

"JISC's investment in enriching digital resources is a real commitment 
to preserving resources for the use of generations to come.  VADS is an 
exciting and hugely important collection of unique and valuable images, 
and the enhancement of the website will make these resources even more 
accessible for teachers, researchers and students across the creative 
arts."

The Design Council Slide Collection digitisation project was also 
supported with funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

See the Design Council Slide Collection and the online guide at: 
http://www.vads.ac.uk/collections/DCSC.html

See all of the VADS collections at: http://www.vads.ac.uk and visit the 
Design Council's website at http://www.designcouncil.org.uk

DOR