Since Waterford is a next door neighbor to Tipperary, I thought our listers might be interested in the award their museum has been given. They do a great job. As does the Waterford County Library which contains genealogical data under its Online Resources section. http://www.waterfordcountyimages.org/exhibit/web http://www.waterfordcountylibrary.ie/library/web Christina Listowner IRL-Tipperary --- Original Message --- From: "William Whelan" To: <IRL-WATERFORD-L@rootsweb.com> Subject: [WATERFORD] Waterford County Museum Are World Champions 1. Waterford County Museum Are World Champions 2. New Web site Article On Easter 1916 3. What Next For The Museum? 4. Make A Donation 5. Contact Us Hi All Great news it seems that waterfordcountyimages.org is the best small museum web site in the world. Even the Chief of the Information Technology Office at the Smithsonian Museum of Art thinks so :) http://eyelevel.si.edu . This is a really great achievement for us. I would like to thank all of the list members who have helped us over the years from donations to words of encouragement (and constructive criticism) it has all helped to get us to this point. If anyone on the list has a contact in the Irish national papers it would be nice if you could prod them into covering this award. Thanks again yours Willie And Martin Whelan and all at Waterford County Museum PS don't forget that you can donate to the museum online and help us provide a better service, all of us at the museum are unpaid volunteers so all monies donated goes directs towards preserving Waterford history. 1. Waterford County Museum Are World Champions ============================================== Waterford County Museum Press Release Starts ----------------------- Waterford County Museum Are World Champions The digital image archive constructed by Waterford County Museum has been awarded the Best Small Museum Web Site 2006 title at the prestigious Museums & The Web International Conference held in Albuquerque, New Mexico over March 22nd to the 25th. An eminent panel of academics and web designers chose the award winners. The panel of 24 judges included representatives from the Science Museum - London, Rijksmuseum - Amsterdam, Georgetown University, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art - New York. The award is open to all museums across the globe and is in effect the unofficial world championship of web site construction for museums and archives. One of the judges commented that "I was very taken by the fact that this site was developed with no budget at all, just volunteers and donated expertise and support. Nevertheless it provides an excellent archival resource and a timely reminder that we don't all have the human and financial resources of the big organisations, yet it is still possible to produce useful, good quality resources." What is most remarkable about this project considering its scale is the fact that it was created at no cost to Waterford County Museum by mainly volunteer effort. Typically projects of this scale and technical complexity cost over €100,000. The museum is a small voluntary run organisation located at St. Augustine Street, Dungarvan, Co. Waterford and has an annual budget of just €7000. Such a complex project should be well beyond the reach of a small museum, but by creating partnerships with local business, local government and government agencies the project became achievable. The image management software was written free of charge over a two year period by Dungarvan web design company Déise Design. Martin and William Whelan of Déise Design currently sit on the committee of Waterford County Museum (William is the current museum president). Fás provided a Community Employment worker, Alan Healy, to input the images and Waterford County Library provided free server space to store the digital images. The Heritage Council Of Ireland provided €2800 worth of grant aid to purchase computer equipment and scanners. The archive currently contains some 2500 historic photographs, sketches, postcards, paintings and drawings of County Waterford. The system has been designed to ultimately store ten’s of thousands of images. It is intended that approximately 2500 additional images will be added per annum. In order to find new material for the archive on an ongoing basis the museum has set up a history outreach programme, already there are volunteer collectors in 10 villages around Waterford collecting photographs for the archive. Waterford County Museum had two primary goals when it set up the image archive; Firstly, to allow the general public to have greater access to the images. The photographs will be disseminated worldwide hopefully encouraging interest in Waterford history and further image donation. Secondly, to preserve the images for future generations. Each image is scanned at a huge size and algorithms are then used to resize and watermark each image automatically for display online. A digital copy of the original image is stored in the archive; in the event of an image being destroyed or damaged the museum can reproduce the image off of the digital copy. Expressing delight at the award William Fraher, the curator of Waterford County Museum, stated "that I would like to thank Waterford County Library Service, The Heritage Council of Ireland and Fás for their support of the project, in particular I would like to thank Déise Design for their management of the project over the past two years and also all of the image donors who trusted us with their collections of photographs. I think this image archive project is a great example of what can be achieved with volunteer effort and how technology can allow a small local organisation become a player on the global stage." The archive can be viewed online at www.waterfordcountyimages.org. ----------------------- Ends The award is announced here http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/best/small-win.html The panel that selected the prize winners can be viewed here http://www.archimuse.com/mw2006/abstracts/prg_320000726.html Any queries about this press release can be directed to: William Whelan Phone: 086 2748377 Email: william@deisedesign.com 2. New Web site Article On Easter 1916 ============================================== In this article, Dave Hennessy hopes to bring a better understanding of how different people viewed what was happening in Ireland during Easter 1916; Opinions on how these events impacted on them are given by everyone from ordinary people to Augustine Birrell who was Ireland's Chief Secretary. http://www.waterfordcountymuseum.org/exhibit/web/Display/article/207/ 3. What Next for The Musuem ============================================== The next year or so will be an exciting time for the museum. We are scheduled to have almost 1 million invested in our building by Waterford COunty Council. This will lead to an expansion of space and hopefully lead to a better laid out museum. the construction work is scheduled to commence before year end. We are looking at a rebuild of the existing museum web site at www.waterfordcountymuseum.org. Two main things will occur - it will become more user friendly and incorporate the image archive and futher databases (port records etc.) we are putting online in a more coherent manner. One of the databases we will put up (no promise on a time scale but we are looking at January 07 :)) will be a catalogue of the museums objects with photos of the objects from multiple angles. Secondly the updating of the site will move into the museum proper, I will retain an editorial function. The web site demands too much time from me at the moment (another little baby Whelan is on the way :)) This should result in much, much more quality content being published more frequently. Lastl we are going to continue having travelling exhibitions in the villages of Waterford. Our next port of call is Clashmore sometime in early May. It is important that we are seen as a museum for the whole county not just Dungarvan. ============================================== 4. Make A Donation ============================================== We are a small voluntary body, dependent on donations in order to stay running, our budget is only 7000 Euro per annum. If you can afford to donate any sum no matter how small it will help us in our work of preserving Waterford's history. Details of how to make a donation online or by cheque can be seen here: http://www.waterfordcountymuseum.org/exhibit/web/Display/article/145/2 / ============================================== 5. Contacting The Museum ============================================== All general queries can be directed to the museum at history@dungarvanmuseum.org If you have a comment or complaint about the web site you can contact william@deisedesign.com We are delighted to get all feedback, positive or negative. We endeavour to act on all suggestions that we get but please bear in mind that we are a voluntary organisation and it can take some time to answer queries.