Bookmarks to promote the Architecture and Place digitisation project
Mini-exhibit created to promote digitisation project.
1950s/60s light fitting they formerly hung in the main hall of Conway Hall.
It has been some weeks since we launched the Architecture and Place digitisation project in September during the 2016 Open House London Festival. We had over 300 people visit the library over the weekend (well above our usual attendance!) and several took advantage to join the tours given by our CEO, Dr. Jim Walsh, and the Library and Learning Manager, Sophie Hawkey-Edwards.
We provided access to the digitisation project via a dedicated laptop and via our free wifi; the URL for the project was included on our promotional bookmarks and the mini-exhibit leaflet we produced.
We created a physical exhibit (available to view in our display cases until January 2017) to complement the online collection drawn from the same material, and put out some of the larger format plans for visitors to have a closer look at. Images from the project were projected onto a screen that was hung in a corner of the library to also give visitors a taster of what we had made available online.
A curiosity that intrigued many of our visitors was a light fitting rehung in a stand specially created for it. Due to it’s unusual, slightly sci-fi design it is not initially clear what it is and it became a talking piece for visitors trying to guess it’s original function. It had previously lit the main hall during 1950s and/or 1960s and we were able to display the plan we had for the light fitting as well as a black and white photograph of when it was hung in the main hall.
We also created a trail pack for children to encourage them to investigate the architecture of Conway Hall for themselves.
It was a successful launch and we are pleased and very proud to have our first digitisation project online!