The excellent courses available from the Society of Genealogists in London are well worth taking a look at and there's a free course coming up on Wednesday the 23 October.
There's only a few places left for the short course on 'Getting the most from the Society Catalogue'. It's from 10.30 to 11.30 and features guidance from the society's librarian, Tim Lawrence.
Learn how to get the best from the Society 'Library catalogue'. The course is free, but must be pre-booked. There's more information from the Society website at http://www.sog.org.uk/books-courses/events-courses/getting-the-most-from-sogcat/
To contact the Society please contact their events department on 020 7553 3290 or by email at [email protected]
The National Archives has just announced a new range of online resources for teachers and students for the new school year to further develop an interest and knowledge of the past. There are five new collections of digitised documents and images now available including 'Life on board convict prison ships' and 'attitudes to crime and punishment' as well as looking at pictures, news and documents to explore 'life in Victorian Britain'.
If you'd like to know more or want to see the other digitised collections available, there's more information from The National Archives website at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/878.htm
There's a new beta version available to view on The National Archives website of their 'new look' forthcoming website, available from the end of September.
In the word of the TNA - "the new design will improve the experience of users on modern devices including smartphones and tablets. It will also include a new expanded menu, enabling quicker access into content, and be presented in simpler and clearer page layout."
Take a look at http://beta.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ and see what you think.
News from the Vatican Library is the major project to digitise 82,000 valuable manuscripts from their collection is finally underway.
The project, finally up and running a year after its announcement, uses an armada of equipment to capture the vast range of pages amassed by the Vatican over five or six centuries into one of the world’s most valuable collection of books and manuscripts.
Vatican manuscripts to go online
They include the Vatican’s 8,900 incunabula (books printed before 1501): the Sifra, a Hebrew manuscript written a millennia ago, a 4th century manuscript of the Greek Bible and the De Europa of Pope Pius II, printed around 1491.
More information on the project is available here
The fire over the weekend on the roof of the National Library of Wales seems to have unfortunately damaged some of the new collections housed there. The fire broke out on the roof and the water used to put out the flames unfortunately soaked through and damaged some of the valuable collections stored there.
The library has millions of books plus manuscripts, archives, maps, pictures, photographs, films and music.
Some of the damaged items have been taken to Oxford by a team of salvage experts to hopefully restore. There's more at the BBC website.
