1. A brave new world: Archives on the web Tracy Wilkinson Archivist St John’s College, Cambridge

2. Cambridge College Archives ❖ Institutional archives ❖ Personal papers

3. Virtual Solutions to Manuscript Display  St John’s Top 5  Special Collections Spotlight  Archives on the Move  Archive of the Month

4. What are they?  St John’s Top 5: online exhibition which spotlights five of the best of ‘something’ from the College’s archive collections.  Special Collections Spotlight: image based blog highlighting exceptional items and upcoming events featuring manuscripts and archives in the College.  Archives on the Move: an historical walking tour app using original sources and images  Archive of the Month: online exhibition featuring innovative & thematic manuscript display

5. How did all 4 come about? ❖ Websites needed updating ❖ Desire to engage new users ❖ Need to motivate current users to look at Archive in a new way

6. How I develop them ❖ Search collection for items anyone can identify with ❖ Isolate a theme ❖ Display the manuscript as an object - content not always the focus

7. Technical Stuff ❖ Scan the images into high-res jpegs ❖ Optimise images for the web ❖ Insert text & images into content management system ❖ Add links ❖ Write news story

8. Get the Message Out ❖ Email ❖ Facebook ❖ twitter ❖ News story

9. ❖ Use lots of images ❖ Highlight physical qualities of document making them accessible to non-specialists ❖ Shared theme brings the documents to life Why do they work?

10. Benefits for the Archive ❖ Engagement of younger technologically fluent users ❖ Promotion of Archive & Special Collections ❖ Justification of the Archive & continued existence ❖ Support of those who influence departmental funding

11. Final Thoughts ❖ Variety is key to the pages’ mass appeal ❖ Anyone can do it ❖ The key is to think laterally and to think outside of the box

12. Contact: t.wilkinson@joh.cam.ac.uk http://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/archives