Thanks for your response, Rufus.
The central repository is the ideal (for me) - a search for a place or person
returning hits broken down into book, journal, thesis, map, photograph, dataset
etc with details. (It would be great to have an abstract or synopsis of
everything!) On the basis of zero experience in creating such a repository I
imagine it would not be a difficult task so much as very demanding in terms of
person hours and would require significant sponsorship/funding. But maybe there
are not enough local historians out there who want a resource like this to make
it an idea worth pursuing.
Your suggestion to “focus on a more decentralized approach in which you pull
together in a looser way interested individuals and communities” would seem to
be a good way of establishing the level of interest and commitment. I’m pleased
you mentioned a blog because that was the first box I ticked in my ideal portal
site framework. I imagined it would be written by several local historians (as
a team) to ensure a regular flow of posts offering different perspectives on
the subject. Some of the posts, and maybe even the majority initially, would be
announcements of existing resources located.
Found resources would no doubt come in all shapes and sizes and fall in wide
ranges of accessibility, usability, usefulness and cost. Presumably inputting
details of resources to a database, as and when found, would give a clearer
indication of the practicability of creating the ideal central repository.
Thanks for the offer of help in taking some of these ideas forward but even
with your support I can’t imagine flying solo with this. Happy to be one of
the blogging team and to help with growing the database of resources but really
need some active partners to take it forward.
Best wishes
Ian
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