Tips and Tricks for Using Our Heritage Collections Online Website

Did you know you can search for items from our Archives and Special Collections from your own device? Our Heritage Collections Online website is the place to go if you are looking for photographs, ephemera and other items that may not be on our Library catalogue. This blog will show you some tips and tricks for using our Heritage Collections Online website.

We’ll work our way down the front page of the site.

Tip 1: Keyword search. The easiest way to search is using keywords that might be in the description or title of the item. You can use the search bar in the top right of the page or the one further down.

Bear in mind our online collection is a work in progress, so we may not have the descriptions as detailed as we’d like yet! The system does use automatic subject headings, but these aren’t always accurate either.

Tip 2: Highlights. Perhaps you’re just browsing out of curiosity or a collection catches your eye. Our Highlights section are lists of items curated by our team. Sometimes they are a collection of photographs, like the Maunder Family Images, sometimes they are a collection of items like Maps or Community Archives. These highlights change regularly and often relate to the exhibition that is on display in person on Level 3 at Central Library.

Top Tip: Select the green ‘view all highlights’ button under the first four to see all the curated lists!

Tip 3: Bird’s Eye View. This feature shows all the items currently online in a mosaic style. As many of our items are black and white images or currently have our green placeholder image, this feature is going to be more striking in the future as we digitise more of our collection, but is still a great way to peruse the collection if you don’t have anything particular in mind.

Tip 4: Explore by Colour. Similar to the Bird’s Eye View, this feature allows you to group items by colour. As many of our items are black and white images or currently have our green placeholder image, this feature is going to be more striking in the future as we digitise more of our collection, but is still a great way to peruse the collection if you don’t have anything particular in mind.

Tip 5: Object Type. At the very bottom of the page there is a list of all the types of objects currently on our Online Collection. Perhaps you want to see all the Letters we have, or maybe all the magazines, this is the place to find them! You can also refine your keyword search by object type, once you’ve made your initial search.

Tip 6: View item. Once you’ve found something interesting, you can select the item to view the information we have about it. We don’t always have lots of information, so we appreciate any information you can provide for any of our items! You can leave a comment on the item to share your knowledge with us.

We hope these tips and tricks have piqued your interest, now we encourage you to explore our Heritage Collections Online and see what interesting items you can find. We are always adding to our online collection and our information, so do check back regularly to see what’s new.