Bad Boys Online: The National Archives awards mass digitisation contract to Brightsolid
Following an open tender process The National Archives has appointed brightsolid to transcribe, digitise and publish online three million records from its Crime, Court and Convicts collection.
The Crime, Courts and Convicts Collection is a rich source of fascinating stories and colourful characters. The content ranges from “petitions for clemency” (where friends and family of people sentenced to death would amass evidence and character references to plead for a lesser sentence) and entry books, judges’ reports, prison registers, transfer papers and gaolers’ reports and together forms a valuable resource for family historians or those researching criminal or legal history.
The materials within the series will be indexed with the family history market in mind and the records made searchable by names, alias, date of birth, places, offence and sentence. By exploring the richness of the personal details and lively stories contained within the pages, the project aims to bring the history of the British penal system (and its exports) vividly to life.
Caroline Kimbell, Head of Licensing at The National Archives said:
By making these important sets of historical records available online, more people than ever before can uncover hidden stories of crime and punishment from the archives.
Being able to add these popular records to the growing list of National Archives resources available digitally is yet more evidence of the importance and effectiveness of forming partnerships across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
The National Archives frequently works with licensed partners to make its most popular and richly detailed record series available online to widen public access to the records.
The sheer scale and enormous expense of scanning and transcribing large records series means that mass digitisation projects, such as those required for genealogical datasets, can only be achieved through a programme of licensing in partnership with commercial publishers. Since 2002 the cost of conserving, scanning, transcribing, loading and hosting The National Archives’ records is estimated at £53 million.
Elaine Collins, Business Development Director at brightsolid commented:
Thousands of our family history customers could discover a previously unknown ‘black sheep’ hidden within their family tree. This new online resource could help them to unravel the mysteries of untold tales from their families’ past that may otherwise have been forgotten when stories were passed down through the generations. Brightsolid is very much looking forward to digitising and publishing online for the first time these amazing records from the national collection, making them available to an ever growing audience of family historians worldwide.
The digitisation project is a huge undertaking with conservation, scanning, image processing and quality control work needed. This will be a labour and time intensive manual scanning project with around 1.84 million images (pages) making up the records. Both the conservation and scanning stages are expected to take around 18 months to complete with the first tranche of records expected to be published online from December 2012.
The National Archives is currently inviting proposals for the commercial digitisation of other records and packages under the Licensed Internet Associateship programme.
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/business/popular_records.htm
For media enquires please contact the press office on 0208 392 5277 or press@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk.
Notes to Editors
About The National Archives
The National Archives, www.nationalarchives.gov.uk is a government department and an executive agency of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). As the official archives of the UK government, it cares for, makes available and ‘brings alive’ a vast collection of over 1000 years of historical records, including the treasured Domesday Book.
In addition to safeguarding historical information, The National Archives also manages current digital information and devises new technological solutions for keeping government records readable now and in the future. It provides world class research facilities and expert advice, publishes all UK legislation and official publications, and is a leading advocate for the archive sector.
At the heart of information policy, The National Archives sets standards of best practice that actively promotes and encourages public access to, and the re-use of information, both online and onsite at Kew. This work helps inform today’s decisions and ensures that they become tomorrow’s permanent record.
