IHBC members and colleagues are asked to try out a new test site for the Historic England (HE)-led Heritage Gateway information resource, in which the IHBC is a partner, with a linked survey for feedback open until 28 October.
Sarah MacLean, Heritage Information Partnerships Supervisor at HE, writes:
Dear IHBC colleagues,
As some of you will be aware the Heritage Information Access Strategy (HIAS) is an initiative that is working towards improving the handling of historic environment data by Historic England and our partners in local Historic Environment Records (HERs). You can find out more about HIAS at https://historicengland.org.uk/research/support-and-collaboration/heritage-information-access-strategy/
The HIAS programme comprises a series of projects and work packages, one of which focuses on Heritage Gateway. As part of this work package we have produced the Heritage Gateway Trial website. The website has been developed using feedback from Data Providers and website users last year. It is a temporary test site that focuses on improvements to the quick search and map search and some changes to the look and feel. The site is hosted on the Historic England website and is mobile responsive too. The purpose of the site is to test the improvements we have made and gain further understanding of what users would like to see. HER contact details and advanced searching features have not been included in this test site but are still available on the main Heritage Gateway site.
We would very much like to invite you and your colleagues to view the site and provide feedback. Please visit http://www.historicengland.org.uk/heritage-gateway and explore. There is a survey on the site so you can send us feedback that way or you can e-mail HeritageGateway@historicengland.org.uk with your thoughts. The survey closes 28th October and the site will be taken down in the New Year.
In the meantime the main Heritage Gateway website (http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk) will continue as normal, with new datasets being added and HER contact information kept up to date.
To find out more about the Heritage Gateway Trial website (including some known issues) please visit https://historicengland.org.uk/heritage-gateway-trial/about/
Finally if you can please share this with your networks so we can gather as much feedback as possible we would be very grateful.
To find out more about Heritage Gateway and its partners see http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk
