Collections Trust and UK Universities to Promote Collections Research
11th Jun, 2008
A consortium including the Collections Trust and four major UK universities has been awarded funding by the Arts & Humanities Research Council under the Collaborative Research Training programme to develop a series of training resources aimed at improving the use of collections for research.
The consortium is led by Dr Ross Parry, senior lecturer in Museum Studies at the University of Leicester. It includes:
- The Collections Trust
- Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester
- Department of the History of Art, University of Glasgow
- Centre for Museology, University of Manchester
- International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, University of Newcastle
The programme, titled the Digital Heritage Research Training Initiative, runs between July 2008 and March 2010. It will develop an innovative suite of training resources to be hosted on the award-winning Collections Link website (www.collectionslink.org.uk). The resources will cover a range of disciplines from the use of collections databases for research to the analysis of user-generated content and the ethics of working with cultural material. Each will include a trainer's manual and learning materials and can be downloaded and repurposed for use by any UK academic research institution.
Speaking after the announcement of the award, Collections Trust Chief Executive Nick Poole said, 'The collections of the UK's museums, libraries and archives represent an unparalleled resource for research and scholarship. Working in partnership with four leading Universities, we now have an opportunity to apply our expertise and profile in the cultural sector to make a real difference to the accessibility of these collections for researchers. I am confident that this initiative will help us forge a stronger and lasting working relationship with the UK HE sector.'
Lead partner Dr Ross Parry from the University of Leicester said, 'Our digital age impacts not only upon the subjects that we today deem worthy of research but also the way we then undertake this research. In this respect the study of museums and galleries is no exception. Recent years have seen the emergence of a credible new subject area of ‘Digital Heritage' that is asking a range of new questions about our cultural heritage using a raft of research tools quite new to many studying in the Humanities. Excitingly, this AHRC award will allow Leicester and a consortium of other leading training providers in the area of cultural heritage to make a significant step forward in this domain – an innovation that they will then be able to share as a national training resource.'
Further information about the Digital Heritage Research Training Initiative will be published in the For Researchers pages.
