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Imperial War Museum collections go on-line

Partnership with Esprit Soutron delivers successful access to museum catalogues

The Imperial War Museum is pleased to announce the launch of its Collections On-Line. This exciting new resource means that for the first time it is possible to access the museum’s catalogues via the museum’s website.

Over 55,000 records of items in the museum’s varied collections are now available in a single database. This can be searched on the Internet. Students, researchers or anyone interested in history will now have access to information on items in the museum’s collections from their classroom, library, office or home.

The catalogue is enhanced by short essays on major historical themes. The user is led to specially selected catalogue records from all the collections. Images, sound files and text documents are attached to many of these selected records, giving the user more insight into the highlights of the Museum’s holdings. The users is also able to carry out searches as required.

The museum holds objects and works of art, a library, plus archives of documents, film, photographs and sound. The online catalogue offers a great deal of information and will continue to develop and expand. The present database covers the collections of documents, film and sound in detail; other collections will be added in 2003/04.

Derbyshire-based Esprit Soutron (ESP) worked closely with the Imperial War Museum to make the Collections available to the public. This involved setting up and managing the web hosting service, creating a facility for moving records from the different departmental textbases, and creating a “shopping cart” type facility to allow members of the public to comment on information viewed or request to see specific items of information.

Esprit Soutron, leading developers and providers of web-based information management tools and solutions, also provided advice on various aspects of the assignment and project management. Lesley Young, Marketing Manager at ESP commented “We have thoroughly enjoyed working with the Imperial War Museum on this exciting project. Its success has been due to the dedication from everyone involved. We are committed to working in close partnership with our customers and to delivering their projects on time, within budget specifications and beyond their expectations”.

The Imperial War Museum’s Collections On-line site is available from the museum’s main site (www.iwm.org.uk) or direct at www.iwmcollections.org.uk