Moya's message about a possible HLF meeting for SMRs reminded me that we were wanting feedback on the idea of a "Themes" module for HBSMR, designed for HLF and outreach projects.
This was seemingly well-received at the Shrewsbury UG meeting, but would need a lot more feedback and discussion before we could invest in it.
The idea would be to create a thematic/interpretative overview in the SMR, an extra dimension to the information content, organised as a series of "themes". Each theme would be a descriptive illustrated piece (for example, Bronze Age Borsetshire, Death and Disease in Medieval Middleham, the Excavations of General Trench-Bottomley, etc. etc), with links to the relevent SMR monuments, event records, references, and with links to relevant photos or illustrations.
It seems that many HLF-funded (and other?) SMR outreach projects want to create this kind of synthesis information, but at the moment this typically has to be created outside the SMR software, making it difficult to interlink it back together with examples etc.
The key feature of a new module would be that the content would be managed and created within HBSMR, but would be completely pre-formatted and interlinked for mounting on the web, whenever and however that is actually done.
Features might include:
* Different link types, governing how links to a theme might be organised on a web site - such as "Local examples" / "Further Reading" / "Sites to visit"
* Each specific link and/or linked image could have its own text (such as..."This grassy mound near Farnham is a good example of ...", or "this 1897 photo shows Trench-Bottomley supervising the excavation of the eastern defences..."). This would allow the same monument to be linked into different themes, with a relevant specific caption for each.
* ability to reference and hyperlink to glossaries/thesauri within descriptive text.
* ability to easily embed links to monuments/events/sources/images within descriptive text
* Clear presentation and management of links (maybe something like current tree control?)
* perhaps the ability to group and order linked records - e.g. sites to visit on a walk/drive.
The module would be geared towards preparing material for web access, but would probably be just as good for other outreach initiatives - for example preparing data for leaflets, heritage trails, Council information points, etc. It has also just occurred to me that it might also be useful for preparing research frameworks.
We are thinking of this as an optional Main Menu module, as probably only some SMRs would want it (what proportion?). Obviously this would be quite a major development, so we have to work out how it could be paid for.
At the moment I would be very interested in getting some idea how many SMRs might be interested, and in whether we are thinking along the right lines for the design. Also timescales?
Please contact me off-list if you might be interested in such a module, or on-list if there are any general ideas/issues to discuss.
Best wishes
Crispin
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Crispin Flower
exeGesIS SDM Ltd.
Great House Barn
Talgarth
Powys
LD3 0AH
Tel: 01874 712145/711145
Fax: 01874 711156
email: [log in to unmask]
URL: www.esdm.co.uk
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-----Original Message-----
From: O'MULLANE, Moya [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 19 July 2002 11:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Smr HLF Project Discussion
Dear all,
It was suggested at the last SMR user group meeting that it would be a good
idea to get some discussion going between all the various different SMR HLF
projects running at the moment. This would only be for projects underway
already and not those in planning stages as this is intended to be looked at
later this year.
I'm just trying to get an idea of who is interested in an informal meeting
to share ideas/ problems/ progress. It will probably be in the autumn and
Chester is a possible venue though it probably isn't the most central
location. If you are interested let me know and if anyone wants to offer an
alternative venue please feel free.
Cheers
Moya O'Mullane
Project Officer - Revealing Cheshire's Past
Cheshire County Council
Environmental Planning
Backford Hall
Chester
CH1 6PZ
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