First World War Poetry Digital Archive

Project start date: 2007-04 Project end date: 2009-03
The First World War Poetry Digital Archive is an online repository of over 7000 items of text, images, audio, and video for teaching, learning, and research. The heart of the archive consists of collections of highly valued primary material from major poets of the period, including Wilfred Owen, Isaac Rosenberg, Robert Graves, Vera Brittain, and Edward Thomas. This is supplemented by a comprehensive range of multimedia artefacts from the Imperial War Museum, a separate archive of over 6,500 items contributed by the general public, and a set of specially developed educational resources. These educational resources include an exciting new exhibition in the three-dimensional virtual world Second Life. Freely available to the public as well as the educational community, the First World War Poetry Digital Archive is a significant resource for studying the First World War and the literature it inspired.
Methods usedCategory
2d Scanning and photographyData capture
Accessibility analysisStrategy and project management
Audio interaction (asynchronous)Communication and collaboration
Resource sharingCommunication and collaboration
Cataloguing and indexingData structuring and enhancement
Sound recordingData capture
DocumentationStrategy and project management
PrototypingStrategy and project management
Server scriptingData publishing and dissemination
System quality assurance and code testingStrategy and project management
Version controlStrategy and project management
Textual interaction (asynchronous)Communication and collaboration
Usability analysisStrategy and project management
Interface designData publishing and dissemination
Virtual world modellingData structuring and enhancement
Web browser scriptingData publishing and dissemination
preservationStrategy and project management
Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)Metadata standards
soundContent types
moving imageContent types
textContent types
Funding sources: 
Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC)
Content types created: 
Moving Image, Sound, Still Image/Graphics, Text
Software tools used: 
MySQL, Microsoft PowerPoint, Quicktime, Ruby on rails, Audacity, Extensis Portfolio, Mantis, CONTENTdm
Source material used:  
The collection brings together highly valued material (manuscripts of poems, letters, diaries) currently dispersed across the UK and the US, on the poets Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas, Robert Graves, Isaac Rosenberg, Vera Brittain, Roland Leighton, Siegfried Sassoon, Ivor Gurney, David Jones and Edmund Blunden. Also included is audio, video and photographic content from collections at the Imperial War Museum, and a separtate collectin of over 6,500 items contributed by the general public (The Great War Archive).
Digital resource created:  
Digitisation of over 7,000 items relating to some of the major British poets of the First World War as well as a wealth of contextual material from the Imperial War Museum and National Archives. In addition the project has launched The Great War Archive, over 6,500 items submitted by the general public originating from this historic event. The multimedia online database of primary source material plus contextual information (images, audio and film material from the ImperialWarMuseum) is browseable and searchable, and freely available online. The archive also includes instructional material for students to train them in editorial and research skills using primary source material. Users are able to create their own annotated trails through the archive for others to use, and to submit new digital material to the Great War Archive.
Data Formats created: 
JPEG, TIFF, MP3, MPEG-4
Production of compressed JPEG files from uncompressed TIFF files for web dissemination, conversion of high-quality MPEGS to medium and low quality for web delivery
Metadata standards employed: 
Dublin Core, simple (DC), Text Encoding Initiative (TEI)

Institutions affiliated with this project: 

UK HE institutions involved:
University of Oxford

Project staff and expertise: 

Principal staff member:Stuart Lee, Kate Lindsay
Other staff:Computing officer(s) / Technical supporter(s), PhD student(s), Postdoctoral researcher(s) / Research assistant(s)
External expertise:


Metadata on this arts-humanities.net record
Author(s) of recordKate Lindsay
TitleFirst World War Poetry Digital Archive
Record created2010-03-15
Record updated2010-04-21 16:19
URL of recordhttp://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2686
Citation of recordKate Lindsay: First World War Poetry Digital Archive.
<http://www.arts-humanities.net/node/2686>
created: 2010-03-15, last updated 2010-04-21 16:19