Designation

Access to Collection

Educational Development

Renaissance

The Designation scheme, introduced in 1998, recognised the national and international importance of the Cottonian Collection. The scheme is administered by MLA (previously Re:source) and provides financial support through the associated Designation Challenge Fund. Between 1999-2004 funding was applied for and awarded to enable a range of projects to be carried out, all aimed at increasing awareness of and extending access to the Cottonian Collection.

Many items in the collection are not immediately accessible for display, in particular the large collection of historic prints and illustrated books in the Cottonian Collection Library dating from the 16th to 18th centuries. Therefore one of the core activities during 1999-2002 was a programme of extensive documentation, photography and digitisation of items in the collection, which would support public access.

One of the main points of public access to images of items in the Cottonian Collection and associated information has been this web site and an on-site public access computer terminal.

The latter allows visitors to the museum to browse through a range of information and images in the Cottonian Gallery itself, whilst the web site is aimed at a wide and varied audience including casual browsers and researchers alike. Both provide information to the background of the collection, its history and collectors and also a wide range of images and information about items in the collection.

Another major challenge was to promote the educational use of the Cottonian Collection. Consequently, a range of projects were devised, which could be delivered on-line for teachers to use in the classroom. Based on the National Curriculum and using imagery in the collection all were developed by, or in association with, teachers in local Plymouth schools.

An initial set of 3 pilot projects were completed and launched in 2002, followed by a further 5 in 2003-04. In addition images have been selected for other projects, also available as booklets - for details see 'Projects On-line' and 'Project Booklets'.

During 2004-05 further funding was made available through the Renaissance in the Regions initiative. A further 5 projects were devised through the support of the museum's education team, as part of the education development programme. All the projects are now promoted to local schools through the museum's other new education initiative the Museum in Transit - aimed at taking the museum to schools.