Project Update #7 27.JAN.2016

Welcome to the new project blog!

We are excited to have this up and running after several months of construction and developing our skills in WordPress. This will now be the main go-to space for project news, information, resources, and an easy way onto the Know Your Place map.

Look out for the click-through map logo on the home page which will change colour as the project progresses and our ‘progress donuts’ which chart how far we have reached in target areas of work.

We will also aim to publish fortnightly blog articles – a mixture of project updates, behind-the-scenes diary articles and a selection of top tips to help you get the most out of Know Your Place. There’s an archive of previous project updates, too.

So please take a little time to explore what we have to offer.

 

Putting South Gloucestershire on the map

We are delighted to announce that the first area of expansion of Know Your Place into South Gloucestershire will go live in the week beginning 1st February! The map will continue to grow over the Spring and Summer 2016 as more data is ready to add, starting with basemap layers of enclosure maps and town plans, and information layers showing collections material from participating museums, libraries and archives. You’ll also be able to add your own records to the map, building a rich community layer of contributions. So there will always be new things to discover and share on Know Your Place.

The next region to be added onto the map will be Wiltshire, where volunteers have been busily working to prepare digitised maps ready to go onto Know Your Place.

 

Survey results in

Our survey ran for 6 weeks from November-December and collected 272 responses. We’ve crunched numbers and reviewed your comments and here are a few of your requests and what we are doing about them:

  • “A Home Tab would be a start / I think some sort of welcome portal is needed.” We have built the project blog to act as this welcome portal.
  • “A very brief ‘How to use’ Instructions and a few examples of how you can use the resource.” These have been written on the project blog section ‘Explore the Map’ and there is a new QuestionMark button on Know Your Place that will take you there.
  • “Wider area! But I think that’s coming.” We are definitely working on this! The remainder of the West of England region will be added to Know Your Place over the next six months.
  • “Bring back the spyglass.” Instructions on where to locate the spyglass facility are included on the blog.
  • “Tithe apportionment linked to tithe maps.” We will be creating a working group of partners to look into this – see point below.

 

Apportionments

We are forming a working group consulting with interested groups around the region who are transcribing apportionments data. The project is now in a position to begin considering the practical and technical requirements of putting this information on Know Your Place and I would like to invite interested groups to be part of the project’s working group who advise on this matter – particularly how to reconcile different groups’ methods of transcription as there are likely to be a range of different approaches used.

Please contact us by 8th February to express your interest in taking part in this group, to receive more information.

 

New Year, New Resolutions? Consider supporting Know Your Place!

The project is looking for organisations, local interest groups and community projects working with heritage in the West of England area who might like to collaborate with us. We are also recruiting and training volunteers. You can read more on our Support Us page. If you would like to find out more, please get in touch.