#CrowdCymru digital archives volunteer project

 

Thanks to funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and National Lottery Players, we created a working partnership with Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff University Special Collections & Archives and the National Library Wales to deliver a digital volunteering project.

The idea for the project was born from a need to demonstrate that as project partners we were endeavouring to taking a swift, proactive, and collaborative approach to modernise our services to meet the ambitious roadmap of the Welsh Government’s Digital Strategy of Wales which aims to “improve the lives of everyone through collaboration, innovation and better public services”. 

We harnessed the exceptional knowledge of individuals across Wales – and beyond- to help us improve the information about our collections. 

Using a newly created bi-lingual online platform developed by the National Library of Wales, we invited volunteers to tag, index and transcribe documents to make them more accessible for researchers. 

This process equipped more people with the digital skills they now need to remain well-connected across their communities and to develop these skills to take full advantage in seeking opportunities in the workplace and for wellbeing. Moreover, we have paved the way for archives services to develop new models for remote volunteering without the need to travel that support the Welsh Government’s ambition to reduce our carbon footprint. Our volunteer numbers totalled ninety and although the majority came from Wales, we also had sign-ups from USA, Canada, Australia & South Korea.

Together they generously gave over 1,430 hours of time volunteering for this project. 

This project ended on November 30 and throughout these 16 months we were overwhelmed by the sheer generosity of the heritage archives environment and sector. This project has been met, at every request, with offers of help and support and a true sense of working together supporting individual endeavours for the greater good of the whole sector. How wonderful to be part of such a great community.

The project team were keen to share the experiences, learning and best practice from the project with the heritage sector, and this resulted in the development of as a Project Handbook well as an options report for future funding

You can find out more about the project, and the activities undertaken, through the links below.  

All content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License 

  • At the end of the project, we asked our volunteers to tell us – in a ‘One Minute Wonder’ - about their favourite document, image or collection. ​#Crowd Cymru:  One-Minute-Wonders

Archives Wales

 Archives and Records Association (UK & Ireland)