A series of exciting projects linked to the Great War have been taking place at IT Services.
An initial project on First World War poetry, funded by JISC was set up Dr Stuart Lee. As part of the project, a website was set up and events were run to collect stories and memorabilia from the general public. The initiative proved very successful and some 6,500 items were added to the Great War Archive. Although the Archive is closed for new contributions, the project is still receiving attention from academics, press and the general public.
The RunCoCo service (Running a Community Collection) was initiated to document the work done for the Great War Archive. It now provides advice, training and support to those interested in running a community collection or using digital technologies for crowdsourcing, public engagement and impact.
The Oxford Community Collection Model was adopted by the large international project Europeana 1914-1918, and the RunCoCo team has worked with local and national teams to roll out a programme of online collection and public collection events across Europe. The project has held over 150 collection events and the freely available online collection holds over 150,000 digital objects and stories from across the globe, making it a valuable source of research material for academics and students.
A further resource, of direct relevance to Great War researchers, is World War 1 Centenary: continuations and beginnings. The website features a collection of articles on new perspectives on the First World War. The site also features a resource library of cross-disciplinary teaching and learning resources freely available to the educational community and the wider public. Educators and students can download, reuse, and share high quality materials including: blogs posts from experts in the field, inspirational lectures and talks, interactive maps, resource packs, models, contemporary photographs, and other visual images.
IT staff have been involved in various bids and research proposals and are happy to work with academics and students in current or future projects. You can find further information at the links provided and also here. If you think that there are materials in the collections that would be useful for your current research, or you are developing ideas related to the Great War, or the period beyond 1914-1918, then please contact:
Dr Ylva Berglund Prytz, Senior Research Officer – ylva.berglund@it.ox.ac.uk
Sarah Wilkin, Engagement Officer – sarah.wilkin@it.ox.ac.uk