NEWS

History Club Announces Databank and Access Arrangements - Feb 2016.

 

Gringley History Club is delighted to announce the online publication, in easily accessible form, of its full historical Databank of village and related history. This information, which is steadily growing, has been collected and stored over the 5 years of the Club's life. I heartily thank the dozens of village residents, past and present, and especially Club members, for locating and gathering this rich archive.


The Databank contains over 850 Notes, now stored in a free multi platform computer application called Evernote. Half the Notes contain multiple pages, so there are 700 pictures and over 1000 documents included, all tagged and indexed to aid retrieval. Access to the Databank is via the Club's brand new totally redesigned website. This resides at www.gohistory.org.uk. 


Those who have previously visited or book-marked the original website, with this same domain name, are urged to navigate to the new site soon to bookmark that, and to check out the complete reconstruction. Once you are there, it takes just three clicks to start reviewing the Notebook that interests you. All visitors will be surprised by the breadth and depth of our collection. A PC or Mac will yield the best results, but most of the data can also be viewed on tablets and smartphones, though a reasonably brisk internet connection is best to enjoy browsing the collection. 


Over 80% of the Databank content is completely free to browse. Either a £10 donation by cheque to the Club, or annual membership of £10 a year, is required to access the remaining 20%. An Evernote account (which is free) is not essential but more serious researchers wanting to take full advantage of all the Databank's contents and indexing will want to access the information via Evernote. They will also need to contact the Club to have the information shared directly to their Evernote account. They may also choose to upgrade their Evernote account to one of the enhanced versions, for a modest annual fee. 


Finally, the Club is also offering researchers the service where, in response to a specific request, we do the search, then retrieve and send directly to you links to the specific information we have in the Databank. An informal search process has been available ever since we started and several researchers have benefitted. The real difference now is that we can ourselves actually find more of the stuff you might be seeking!  We suggest a £5 donation from non-members to Club funds for successful searches.  


Your feedback in improving and enlarging this Databank is vital to us, so if you have difficulties accessing the information, or within it you spot errors or omissions, please let me know, preferably by emailing to:  alanhickman@gohistory.org.uk.



Alan Hickman

Chairman and Webmaster

8th February 2016