Warwick museum wins digitisation award to help make archives more accessible

A museum in Warwick has been presented a digitisation award to help them make their archive more accessible.
St John's House Museum.St John's House Museum.
St John's House Museum.

St John’s House Museum is home to The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (Royal Warwickshire) museum, which is on the first floor, and Heritage and Culture Warwickshire displays and exhibits, which are on the ground floor.

Stephanie Bennett, curator at the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers museum, applied to TownsWeb Archiving for their Digitisation Award to help fund the digitisation of the museum’s World War One archive.

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The archive tells the story of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

Battalions from the Regiment served in France, Belgium, Italy, Gallipoli and Mesopotamia during the Great War.

The museum’s collection includes maps, war diaries, soldier records and letters.

The Digitisation Award is given out to support organisations in digitising their WW1 heritage collections.

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The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers museum was selected as the winner and was awarded £2,500.

Stephanie Bennett, curator at the museum, said: “It is wonderful news to have been chosen to receive the World War One Army Heritage Digitisation Award.

“It was a complete surprise to win the award with so much competition from so many other worthy organisations.

“I am excited about the prospect of working with TownsWeb Archiving on the project. The museum archives are a wonderful resource which is used on a daily basis.

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“They tell many personal stories and the history of a major conflict that shaped our lives.

“It is great to embark on the process of preserving the archives for future generations and to make them more accessible to people.”

Paul Sugden, judge, and senior digitisation consultant at TownsWeb Archiving, said: “The uniqueness of RRF Museum’s collection, the fact that the archives are accessed on a daily basis for research and to answer public enquiries, and that the collection is at risk due to extremely limited funding for the Museum all made a very strong case for winning the Digitisation Award.

“This, coupled with a comprehensive and passionate application, made them the winners for me. And we look forward to working with RRF Museum to preserve this important collection.”

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