Thursday, 15 March 2012

UK National Archives needs volunteers for pilot

The UK's National Archives (TNA) holds a lot of records pertinent to Irish genealogy research so its recent call for volunteers should not be heeded only by those with British ancestry.

Volunteers are needed to trial an online community pilot. Help is needed to see if such an online community could assist TNA archives to develop and improve their online services. What they want is feedback on new features and functions, and a mechanism for collecting new ideas from users.

To start with they need only 100 volunteers who will be signed up on a first come, first served basis. The new community will be closed so that only members can view and interact with the content. If you are not selected for the initial trial, you’ll be able to join a waiting list; TNA would then notify you if a decision is made to expand the community and increase the number of members.

The trial will run for six months between March and August 2012. If deemed successful, a permanent community will be established as part of TNA's package of online services.

If you'd like to register your interest, you can provide basic details here.