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New POD browsing page on the NLS website

Jan 212011

A quick update that we think will make for some fun weekend browsing.

AddressingHistory project partners the National Library of Scotland have recently added a new page to their website allowing you to browse the Post Office Directories that have already been scanned and made available online. Each directory is listed and the number of directories available is shown in brackets after the town or city name. This can be found at: http://www.nls.uk/family-history/directories/post-office and the page looks like this:

A screen shot of the NLS Scottish Post Officer Directories page: http://www.nls.uk/family-history/directories/post-office

Clicking through to a directory lets you either look at the PDF file or browse the directories in an online viewer at the Internet Archive – I decided to have a look at the Glasgow directory and rather liked the “names too late for insertion” section:

The new Scottish Post Office Directories page is a really useful way to browse the collection, and the directories are always huge fun to read through, so we know you will be pleased to see that so many Scottish directories can now be viewed from there for free.

On a related note: currently only three Edinburgh directories that appear in the AddressingHistory search and mapping tool so you may also be pleased to hear that we are currently looking at several possible developments to AddressingHistory including the possibility of broadening coverage to another or several other areas of Scotland. If there are areas you think would be particularly useful we’d love to hear your comments below.

Have a fantastic weekend and do let the National Library of Scotland know your thoughts on their new directories page!

Project Update: The Preview is Here!

Project Updates Comments Off

Sep 302010

Things have been a little quiet on the blog recently as we have been busy working away on the AddressingHistory tool.

If you signed up for our Preview then you should have already received an email inviting you to test out AddressingHistory (please get in touch if you asked to join the preview but have not yet heard from us) and you can send us your feedback here. Feedback from our previewers so far has been very positive and we are excited about the full launch – details of which will be coming soon (you can also sign up to be alerted to the launch, or join our mailing list)

In preparation for our launch we would be really interested in hearing how you hope to use AddressingHistory to find out more about your area, your ancestors or historical residents or businesses that might have special meaning for you. Please let us know about your interest in the project and the history of Scotland in the comments below or drop us an email with your story as we’d love to do some special blog postings on these stories and the information available in AddressingHistory. Look out for a great guest blog post from Chris Fleet, of the National Library of Scotland, on the history of Causewayside that we hope will inspire you to share your stories!

Finally, for our Australian readers, there will be an opportunity to grab a flyer for yourself or your local history or genealogy group over the next few weeks as Chris Paton, a Scottish history and genealogy expert who runs the Scottish GENES blog, is taking some of our flyers on his Scottish Research Roadshow in October which includes appearances at the History and Genealogy Expo Sydney 2010.

Remember if you would like further information on the project or would like us to send some posters and flyers to you, your local history group or genealogy community then please get in touch.

Would You Like to Be Our Guinea Pig?

Project Updates Comments Off

Aug 122010

We are pleased to announce that you can now register to be one of our early testers of AddressingHistory. Over the next few weeks we will be looking for feedback and comments on the look-and-feel and functionality of the web tool before it is launched to the world.

If you would like to be one of the very first to try out AddressingHistory (and hopefully give us some feedback) please head on over to our sign up form and we’ll be in touch.

If you’d rather wait for the full launch then you won’t have too much longer to wait!

Recent AH Team Adventures

Presentations and Publications, Project Updates, Related Projects and Services 1 Response »

Jul 022010

The AddressingHistory team may have been a little quiet lately but we’ve been very busy…

January 2010 Issue of Cairt

Joe, our software engineer, has been creating a fantastic beta/test version of the AddressingHistory tool (and as promised in our last post he’ll be writing us a guest blog post on how that has been going).

Stuart has been working with Chris Fleet, at project partner the National Library of Scotland, to create an article on AddressingHistory for Cairt, the Scottish Mapping Forum magazine, which should be out later this month. We will link to the digital copy as soon as it is available. Stuart has also written a piece on the project for the next issue of ALISS Quarterly (due out in August).

Nicola has also been out and about talking about the project. In mid June she gave a presentation to the JISC Regional Support Centres Scotland Web 2.0 Forum for Academic Librarians. The title, “AddressingHistory: Using Social Media to Frame an EDINA Crowd-Sourcing Project“, reflected that the talk looked at how we are using social media – tools including this blog, twitter and facebook – to help build awareness of the project.

Also presenting at this event was Gillian Hanlon of Ask Scotland. They are a real time service for asking librarians in Scotland questions about libraries, research, Scottish heritage questions… almost anything in fact (at the event we Gillian demonstrated the system live by asking a question about Cranachan and the history of this delicious Scottish desert). If you’re interested in giving it a try then take a look at the Ask Scotland website.

Nicola also attended a workshop run by the National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement in London in mid-June and was excited to hear about a new Micheal Wood TV series for the BBC called “English Story” that will look at the history of a single village, Kibworth in Leicestershire, from it’s earliest origins through to the present day.

: Kibworth Church by RATAEDL

The programme makers (MayaVision) are still completing filming and post production so it may be some time before it hits TV screens but the initial glimpses looked fascinating and the wealth of local history knowledge and enthusiasm that the programme makers had found was inspiring. Given how many fascinating events had taken place in this one small village it is also fantastically exciting to think about what we may be able to find out about Edinburgh’s past when the AddressingHistory tool is launched.