This is a project to make digital copies of a collection of rare old books, maps, photographs and documents relating to the West Midlands. There are several reasons why this makes sense :-
- to conserve the archives (through reducing wear and tear on originals by enabling digital copies to be viewed)
- to create searchable archives (through using optical character recognition to generate indexes)
- to provide wider access to the archives(through providing copies of CD's, and by giving access to digital images via the internet)
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| This is a private initiative to help libraries, archives and family history societies in the West Midlands to achieve these aims. Put simply, we do the preparation of the digital images for free for these bodies, and cover the costs through sales of CD's and pay-per-view. The project is non profit-making to keep prices as low as possible. Some money is ploughed back into restoring original documents so they can be conserved for future generations.
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| We also work closely with local Family History Societies, Local History Groups and any other local body with an interest in preserving the printed archives of the Midlands. We are always interested to hear from any archives, libraries, family history & local history societies that need digital copies to be made of their holdings.
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| We launched a newsletter at the end of June 2003 to keep you informed as we release new titles. At present, we are adding about 3 or 4 titles a week. If you would like to receive the newsletter, please subscribe to the newsletter by following the link. Alternatively, to see our recent new releases, please go to the New Releases page
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