Since the launch we’ve been steadily working with the project team to refine areas of this site. With the potential for an enormous number of assets to be held in this digital museum, these initial stages of use provide us with lots of learnings from lots of different types of people in the community. How and why they are looking for things and what they then may want to contribute themselves.

Recently the team have been working with a large group in the community to digitally preserve a large collection of items, found in storage, that children created in WW1. This has been an ideal case study for the use of the site. Creating profiles, uploading drawings, poems and reflections by people at the time, and then being able to share them with the present members of the synagogue and their children. The reaction to the importance of being able to do this, the insight it brings and the ability to preserve them as an educational resource has sparked wider interest and has appeared in the news.

It’s really motivating to see it now in use; assets in place but, more importantly being read and shared. We look forward to developing the site further as the collection grows.

Read the full article here.