Liverpool Council

The Mersey Gateway project, which started in December 2001, aims to create a website incorporating 20,000 digital images which will illustrate the history and growth of the port of Liverpool, and the development of distinct communities within the city and in towns on the Mersey. The two-year project, funded by the New Opportunities Fund, is a Merseyside wide partnership of local authority library services, record offices, the University of Liverpool, National Museums Liverpool (formerly the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside) the North West Sound Archive and other specialist organisations such as Catalyst and the Northwich Salt Museum.

The digitised materials will form the main part of the website, but they will be linked by narratives (stories) interpreting the resources. The website will also include interactive and educational elements, enabling users to learn by discovery. The project will stimulate interest and increase pride and awareness within the various communities of their history and provide guidance with the interpretation of primary and secondary source materials. It is hoped that this will encourage the participation of a new audience and will be a contribution towards further source materials, community knowledge, and personal histories and experience.

New Opportunities Fund (NOF) digitise programme

The New Opportunities Fund distributes National Lottery money to health, education and environment projects across the UK with a particular focus on disadvantage and improving quality of life. Grant awards from NOFs £50 million nof-digitise programme were announced in 2001. The programme is enabling information that supports lifelong learning to be put into digitised form. Those who have been awarded nof-digitise grants are developing learning materials covering a wide range of topics including arts, science, history, geography, citizenship and community information for Internet access.

UK PortCities Partners

The PortCities Partners are a group of UK museums, archives and libraries who have come together to open up access to their unique collections of manuscripts, images, paintings and other objects and present these on the web for the first time. Supported by NOF, the PortCities websites (including the Mersey Gateway website) draw on these digitised materials to engage people in the collections and to unearth the stories of people, places and events that lie beneath.

Background to the PortCities Project

The PortCities Partners include the National Maritime Museum London, Liverpool Libraries and Information Services, Southampton City Council, Bristol City Council and Hartlepool Borough Council. Their websites are available from Enrich UK, the New Opportunities Fund portal, and they are one of more than 150 digitisation projects.

PortCities - The Future

The project hopes to attract other cultural partners who will help open up further maritime collections and other archive material and over time will present a truly national picture of our Port Cities and their rich heritage.