The new site offers free access to over 10,000 images of objects, documents and photographs of productions opening up access to an extraordinary range of material cared for by the Trust.
As an online resource, the website holds detailed information and images from historic editions of Shakespeare’s plays and 16th century maps as well as furniture and early Shakespearean souvenirs. It is hoped the online collection will appeal to fans of Shakespeare as well as students and teachers.
“We want as many people as possible across the world to learn from, and enjoy the huge collections held by The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust,” said Paul Taylor, Head of Collections at The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. “This isn’t just a new website for the Trust. It’s a complete redesign of how we think about and manage our collections information. Behind the scenes catalogues will be the focus of our attention for the next few years, creating links between the three areas of collection (museum, archives and library) to manage and present them in a combined and connected way.”
The project to digitise the trust’s collection, which has more than over 10,000 objects, 50,000 books and 1 million documents entrusted to it, started in 2015, and three members of staff have been working on the project over the past 16 months.
Selected images can be downloaded under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This material is either in the public domain or its rights are owned by the Shakespeare Birthplace Images can be used for non-commercial purposes according to the following criteria.
