Digitisation protects your delicate, vulnerable, and particularly valuable items against deterioration and loss by creating a permanent digital copy that can be accessed in place of the original material, reducing the need for handling or exposure. Due to funding issues across the heritage sector, the TWA Digitisation Grant was created to offer financial support, in the form of grants and match funding opportunities, to help digitisation projects take that first step. Creating a digital copy of your physical archives means that, should the unthinkable happen, your items will continue to exist in an alternative, more robust form.
But TWA isn’t just about digitisation and funding, we also offer PasView, specifically tailored for the heritage sector. The PastView publishing platform offers an extensive suite of features for the optimum management, publishing, and sharing of your archive collections.
Many organisations have administration duties and public-facing responsibilities which digitisation can support. For example, records offices will often provide a look-up service for their collections of bound volumes and registers. Having access to a digital copy not only speeds up this process but also enables tasks to be shared across members of staff and locations.
Where does PastView come in?
Dgitisation opens up a world of possibilities for online publishing, enabling organisations to access new audiences and extend their reach. The PastView publishing platform was made for exactly this purpose, offering the ideal solution for all of your publishing needs.
Starting at just £160 a month, PastView promises a no-nonsense solution through a wide range of engaging features that your audiences are guaranteed to love. Here is just a small selection of features which are available on the PastView platform:
High Res Zoom
Through an intelligent interface, offer a high-resolution zoom function that perfectly reveals every minute detail. Using the cursor and scroll wheel of a mouse, or pinch-and-zoom actions on smartphones and tablets, the viewer’s experience is instantly elevated.
Handwritten Text Recogntion (HTR)
Enhance the accessibility of the content in your collection by enabling instant retrieval whenever it aligns with specific words or phrases. Transform handwritten text into machine-readable, digital format to seamlessly connect images and data.
3D Page Turning
Offer a smooth, elegant interaction for bound volumes, no matter the shape or size, enhancing the online reading experience. Perfect for fragile items, takes audiences beyond restrictive glass cabinet displays and vault doors, showcasing the most delicate of archives.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Make information contained within your items more accessible by providing for its instant retrieval wherever it matches a set of given words or phrases. Convert typed or printed text to machine-readable, digital text so that images and data can be connected.
Related Entities
Establish a relationship between your items, connecting and reconnecting them to create alternative pathways into your archive. Tie your single items together so they don’t become isolated within your collections, increasing flexibility and broadening your search.
Offline Copies
Offer downloadable copies of your items to Kindle, PC, Mac, tablet, or phone to enable audiences to retain a digital version of your content on their own, personal device. Generate revenue from your collections and make them work for you and your audiences.
What the 2023 TWA Digitisation Grant Winners Announcement:
Furthermore, we recognise the challenges in estimating the expenses involved in transitioning your collection to an online platform. In order to assist you with this, our team at PastView has developed an innovative and user-friendly quote calculator that is completely free to use! Simply input your specifications into our newly available quote calculator to get started:
