Category Archives: News

Historypin on the Radio, plus how-to’s in Australian!

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We’ve been getting lots of love in Australia lately! Most recently, one of our partners, Museum Victoria, did a radio interview about their contributions to Historypin.

The fabulous Ely Wallis alerted us to it with a Tweet.  Thanks Ely and Gerard Callinan at the ABC! You can have a listen to it here: gc-history-pin-23-7.

And if that wasn’t enough, we heard from our friends over at the Bright Ideas Blog, which is a fantastic resource from the School Library Association of Victoria and the State Library of Victoria.  It turns out they’ve used Storify to create an embeddable resource guide on how to get started pinning on Historypin, full of all sorts of video tips on using our site!  Thanks for creating such a great resource–you guys are the best!  We’ve embedded the videos below–very clever!

We’ve won an award!

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Historypin has been named one of the Best Websites for Teaching & Learning by the American Association of School Librarians!

Historypin is being used by heaps of teachers, students and educational groups around the world. As well as teachers using it in lessons, students have turned into archivists gathering and pinning photos from their family, whilst others have run inter-generational storytelling sessions to capture stories from members of their local communities.

For tips on how to use Historypin in the classroom and to download our free resources & activity packs, visit our schools resources section.

Are you using Historypin as a teaching tool? Got ideas for how to use it in the classroom? Let us know and we will add you to our blog of good ideas.

John Gay, Rupert Potter, English Heritage’s own

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The end of March saw us launch Historypin Channels, where profiles changed in to a completely different beast. Users now have a personalised Historypin map on their Channel page which displays only their content. Historypin Repeats are viewable as well as stories that people have added to your photos. The work that I have been doing with English Heritage Archives has been gearing towards this launch, so seeing the photos I have chosen up on the site and in this new format has been very rewarding.

Kenilworth castle, Eric De Mare. Copyrighted © All Rights Reserved English Heritage Archives

That is not to say that now we have launched Channels that my time with English Heritage is up. I will be spending the next 3 months working with their cataloguing team, finding more great images to put up on the site.

I am currently working my way through the extensive collection of images from photographer John Gay. Gay was born in Germany in 1909, but moved to London in 1933 as Hitler rose to power, beginning his career as a photographer. He primarily made pictures of people, but covered a wide range of subjects from animals for pet food adverts to architecture and country fairs. Gay is perhaps most famous for his series on Blackpool holiday makers, which typifies the traditional British seaside holiday. Look out for images from the John Gay Collection, we’ll be uploading them soon.

A horned cow, Royal Agricultural Show, John Gay. Copyrighted © All Rights Reserved English Heritage Archives

In the meantime there are already hundreds of images on the English Heritage Channel, from a number of different photographers such as Eric De Mare, one of the foremost architectural photographers of the 20th century. There is also the smaller Maltby collection of Odeon cinemas, which I mentioned in my last blog, as well as a set by Rupert Potter, father of children’s author Beatrix Potter. His images are all of Edwardian London, depicting London Zoo and various street scenes within the square mile. As well as all this work from some amazing photographers there are Tours and Collections to be viewed. My favourite being the cataloguing team’s own selection of images from the Early Photographic Print Collection, a body of work containing some of Britain’s earliest known photographic works, going back as far as 1840, you can view that Tour here.

Gloucester Cathedral, Sydney pitcher. Copyrighted © All Rights Reserved English Heritage Archives

Look out for more images from John Gay on the English Heritage Channel on Historypin, also find all these images and more on English Heritage Viewfinder. If you’d like to find out more about what I do you can see my first Historypinner in Residence blog here.

Introducing our new Director of Historypin Australia

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As Historypin grows and takes on different lives in different communities all over the world, we’ve been looking to get good people to lead the project in some of those places.

After putting down roots in San Francisco with Jon Voss, we are now very pleased to be able to launch Historypin Australia in the form of Dr. Sarah Barns, our fantastic new team member and territory Director.

Sarah has a very strong, relevant background in the digital, creative and arts sectors and has been part of a small group of pioneers exploring geo-web and location publishing in Australia.

Specifically, Sarah has spent the past five years experimenting with how the documentary histories of urban sites might be unearthed using location-based services, using a range of media including sound and radio archives, film, photography and maps.

This work has included the production of the ABC’s Sydney Sidetracks in 2008 and co-production of the wonderful Unguarded Moments for the City of Sydney’s Art & About Festival in 2011.

The arrival of Dr Barns (FYI very useful in a geo-spatial heritage emergency, not useful if you’re ill on a plane), comes in the wake of some really exciting developments down under.

These have seen over 25 libraries, archives and museums come on board since Historypin’s launch in July last year, including Museum Victoria sharing the largest collection of images to date via their new Historypin Channel and a close collaboration with the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, with whom we recently announced plans to launch the first national Historypinning campaign in 2013, with a year of events and activities planned across the country.

For more on the national campaign and Sarah’s progress in Australia, keep an eye on the blog and you can get in touch at sarah.barns@wearewhatwedo.org.

All new Historypin Community pages!

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Are you a pinner? A teacher? Someone looking to run a Historypin project in your local area?

Have a look at our brand new Historypin Community pages where you can find the  latest news such as who’s been chosen as Pinner of the Week and what Historypin Challenges you can get involved with.

We’ve also got how to guides and a heap of other materials to give you some ideas and tips on how to use Historypin.

If you’re a teacher, check out our schools section which includes:

If you’re interested in running a project with your community, check out our Local Projects section which has lots of useful materials:

Embed Historypin on your site & do bulk uploads

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Earlier this week we wrote about the launch of Historypin Channels. As well as some neat customising functions, Channels also enable you to upload large amounts of content and embed your Channel on your own site using the Embed and Bulk Uploader Tools.

Embed Tool

With this you can embed your Historypin Channel on your own site, enabling your visitors to explore your content through the Historypin interface. When you set up your embed, you can choose which views to include from Map View, List View, Collections and Tours. Check out some of these super embeds from:

Embedding your Channel is easy:

1. Login to your Channel, click ‘Channel and Account settings’ and select ‘link with my site’.
2. Choose what you want to  embed and generate the code
3. Drop the code into your site

Bulk Uploader 

The Bulk Uploader enables you to upload hundreds of pieces of content and their meta-data at once. Some institutions who have already made use of this tool to populate their Channels with hundreds of photos are The English Heritage Archive, the Museum of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum.

To get started, click ‘pin’ on your Channel. Follow the links to the Bulk Uploader to find out more about it and download the CSV template for your meta-data.

Historypin Channels for All!

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We are excited to announce the release of Historypin Channels which give all Historypin users new tools to personalise, manage and share their content.

If you already have a Profile, it will have been upgraded to a Channel, so you can start personalising yours now. New users can get a Channel when they join Historypin.

With your Channel you can:

  • Customise it with a colour scheme, logo, banner and more
  • See a map showing just your content
  • See all the photos, videos and audio files you’ve uploaded
  • See all the Tours and Collections you’ve made
  • See stories other people have added to your content
  • See your Historypin Repeats – modern replicas of your historical photos that other people have taken using the Historypin smartphone app

Some pinners have already jazzed up their Channels, including Sue Walker White with a lovely historical map Photos of the Past whose banner is a photo that he has pinned and San Francisco MTA Archives who have trams galore.

If you’re keen to see some super Historypin Repeats taken with the smartphone app, have a look at the Channels belonging to Mirrorpix, The English Heritage Archive and Bath in Time.

So get started personalising your Channel. If you need more inspiration, have a look at those featured on our Channels page where you can also search all the users on Historypin to find some great content.

Historypin Joins US National Digital Stewardship Alliance

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Historypin has joined the National Digital Stewardship Alliance, an initiative of the United States Library of Congress with the mission to “establish, maintain, and advance the capacity to preserve our nation’s digital resources for the benefit of present and future generations.”

I am going to represent Historypin in NDSA working groups and was reported saying, “The NDSA provides an incredible opportunity to work with colleagues across the US on important issues of digital preservation and access.  As an organization that works specifically with individual and institutional collections of cultural heritage, we take our responsibilities in this arena seriously.  We’re excited to be a part of the NDSA to learn about, collaborate on, and advance best practices.”

About the National Digital Stewardship Alliance

The mission of the National Digital Stewardship Alliance is to establish, maintain, and advance the capacity to preserve our nation’s digital resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

Members collaborate to preserve access to our national digital heritage. The NDSA accomplishes its goals through working groups with strategic direction from the Coordinating Committee and support from the Secretariat.

NDSA organizations have proven themselves committed to long term preservation of digital information. Our members include universities, consortia, professional societies, commercial businesses, professional associations, and government agencies at the federal, state, and local level. Learn more about the NDSA.

Miles Dell: Historypinner in Residence at English Heritage

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Hi, I’m Miles and I’m a Historypin Assistant. I spend my days looking at new content, researching institutional partners and manning our social media streams. At the beginning of the year I started as a Historypinner with the English Heritage Archives. This involves me working directly with EH at their archives in Swindon, where I get to search through their collection and curate content for Historypin. Every so often I will be posting updates on my progress and giving you a sneak peak at some of the great photography that English Heritage has to offer.

My first few weeks involved me getting to grips with the cataloguing and archive systems they have in place here and, of course, getting a tour of the archive itself.

14km of shelving, approximately 12 million items. Copyrighted © All Rights Reserved English Heritage Archives

12 million photos is rather a lot to be getting through on my own so the cataloguing team, led by Helen Shalders, gave the names of a number of photographers’ work they’d like to see on the site. One of those, and the first collection that I chose to look at for the site, was John Maltby.

In the 1930s Maltby was commissioned to take photographs of Odeon cinemas across the country by Oscar Deutsch, the founder of the chain. The collection reflects the architectural and social trends of the period. The boom of the movie theatre meant that every large town boasted its own art-deco behemoth, where patrons could enjoy visual news as well as light entertainment. Sadly many of these theatres are now no longer in use, many have been demolished, while others have been reincarnated as bingo halls, or in one case a furniture showroom. Here is one of my highlights from the collection:

Odeon Colwyn Bay. Copyrighted © All Rights Reserved English Heritage Archives

Look out for images from the John Maltby collection and more when we upload later this month. If you just can’t wait to see this collection then you can view it on English Heritage’s site here.

Look out for more posts from myself over the coming months for more English Heritage related photographyness.

Historypin goes to Manchester

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On Saturday Miles and I were at the awesome Manchester Histories Festival held in the impressive neo-gothic Manchester Town Hall.

We were invited by Manchester Archives Plus who have been pinning photos from the Greater Manchester County Records and films from the North West Film Archive.

We really enjoyed introducing people to Historypin and showing off the Tours and Collections put together by Alison from Manchester Archives (who you may remember interned with us last year).

But the best bit was seeing and hearing about all the different project’s going on to find, capture and explore Manchester’s histories. A few of our favourites:

52 Manchesters – Did you know that there are 52 Manchesters around the world?!  Towns, dams, mines, from Nova Scotia to Boliviar to Australia. And Chris and Liz are going to visit them all to create a photographic record of them. We’re really inspired by their feat and hope they will do some pinning along the way too. Find out more about their plans here.

Histonauts – A digital treasure hunt game that sent participants (Histonauts) running round the city with their smartphones on missions to discover Manchester’s secret histories through online clues. Brilliant way to take the Manchester Histories Festival onto the streets and into online cultural collections. Created by the Institute for Cultural Practices  and the UniverCityCulture at Manchester University. Find out more and see the leaderboard and read more here.

Streets Museum  - A fascinating project working with locals to collect photos, objects, films and oral histories from lost streets in Salford which have been demolished over the past 50years. They are working to create an online Streets Museum were Salfordians can search for and commemorate their districts and streets.

Thanks to Alison and Dave for inviting us and involving Historypin in all sorts of games and Tours during the week.

PS. A modern replica of the room we were in: