April 2005

Senate House Library, University of London

We have been contacted by the Senate House Library, University of London. They have a project underway entitled "Accessing our Archival and Manuscript History". It has been funded by the former Electronic Access to Resources in Libraries (EARL) Consortium for Public Library networking and the Laser Foundation to provide access for lifelong learners to archival and manuscript holdings held in Higher Education libraries.

The project will develop a web interface allowing electronic access to library and archival material held at Senate House Library, with tutorials and guides to archives and manuscripts, specifically aimed at lifelong learners in South East England. As well as the web interface, there are opportunities for group visits to Senate House Library to see at first hand the resources available.

Full details about the collections at Senate House Library, including archives, manuscripts, manuscript studies, early printed books and reference works, are available from -

www.shl.lon.ac.uk and further information about the project is at http:/cards.shl.lon.ac.uk/aamh

"The project is well underway and the prototype web interface has been created. We are now actively seeking feedback from target user communities, such as family and local historians, genealogists, archaeologists, friends and supporters of libraries and archival repositories and independent researchers, who research using a wide range of original documents, and who would be interested in attending focus groups to comment on the development of the web interface so far. Your feedback will help us to shape the web interface and to make it's content as helpful as possible to lifelong learners."