Manx National Heritage is inviting members of the public to visit their latest development at the Manx Museum, the iMuseum. Situated along the road at Kingswood Grove, Douglas, this fantastic new facility gives digital access to museum collections and newspaper archives. Currently the iMuseum gives access to major Manx newspaper archives from 1792 to 1960, an increasing number of images of Manx people and places dating from 1860 to the present day and the first phase of recordings from the National Sound Archives. Information from the war memorials of Douglas, Baptisms registered from 1800-1878 and the Isle of Man Census Index for 1841 – 1891 can also be found. Explore over 200 objects from the museum collections ranging from Costumes and Textiles to Zoology along with fascinating topics such as ‘Island at War’ and ‘Home Life’. With all of these fascinating archives available in digital format for the first time, MNH invites the public to visit the iMuseum, try out some searches and give their feedback on the system and service. The iMuseum can help you piece together the past, search the archive and view and email search results in the iMuseum, and it’s free! If you have a WIFI connection you can bring your own laptop or a limited number are available to borrow. You can save your hard work to a memory stick or even print out any of your work for a charge payable at the counter. Within the iMuseum you can search by keyword or date over 400,000 pages of newsprint broken down into articles, photos and advertisements. Some of the older papers have also had their text enlarged so that the old fonts and spellings are easier to read. The iMuseum will be in continual development over the coming months and years as more and more records and items are processed, digitised and added to the system but available now at the iMuseum are: Manx papers, 1792 to 1960 Mona’s Herald, 1833-1960 Isle of Man Examiner, 1880-1960 Peel City Guardian, 1855-1960 Manks Advertiser, 1801-1845 Peel Sentinel, 1904-1905 Manx Liberal, 1836-1850 Ramsey Courier, 1900-1926 Manks Mercury, 1792-1795 The Manx Sun, 1827-1906 -Images of people, Adams to Aylyn, 1860s-late 20th century, from the National Photographic Archive -Images of Douglas, 1860-2009, from the National Photographic Archive -War memorials of Douglas and the Parishes, remembering each person commemorated -Baptisms on the Isle of Man (transcribed from the Parish Registers), 1800-1878 -Isle of Man Census Index for 1841, 1851, 1861, 1871, 1891 -Sound Recordings of John Kneen, Manx Gaelic speaker, 1950’s, from the National Sound Archive -Museum Collections, over 200 objects: Archaeology, Art, Costume and Textiles, Furniture, Natural History: Botany, Geology, Zoology, Print and poster, Social History. -Topics to explore, telling stories from the Isle of Man... Archaeology, Curator’s Curiosities, Fishing, Home Life, Island at war, Natural History, TT, War Memorials. Content Coming soon to the iMuseum: -More Manx Newspapers...Castletown Gazette, Green Final, Holiday News, Isle of Man Advertising Circular, Isle of Man Daily Times, Isle of Man Times, Isle of Man weekly Gazette, Manx Cat, Manx Free Press, Manx Patriot, Manx Press, Manx Star, Manxman, Mona Daily News, Ramsey Chronicle, Ramsey Weekly News, Rising Sun, True Manxman, TT Special. Manx National Heritage also hopes to make the iMuseum website accessible from your own home later this year, however at present you can only access the site within the iMuseum building. The iMuseum welcomes people of all ages and offers a great place to read, study, research or just meet up for a coffee in a fresh and modern space in the heart of Douglas. The iMuseum is open Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 5pm and until 7pm on Thursdays, has free WIFI and a bright coffee lounge making it an ideal place to catch up on homework or a place where you can simply surf the net in peace. If you are unsure of your ability to navigate your way around the iMuseum website don’t let this deter you, book yourself onto one of our iMuseum introductory sessions which take place every Thursday morning, by phoning the iMuseum reception on 648065 or dropping by and filling in one of our sign-up sheets. As well as using the iMuseum when it is open to the public you can also hire the facilities at very reasonable rates whether for a business or social events. Call MNH on 648013 for more information about hiring the iMuseum. With the addition of the iMuseum, Manx National Heritage now has two distinct research facilities including the long established Reading Room in the Manx Museum. To obtain full information about the collections, and to answer detailed research enquiries, you may need to use both. The main benefit of the iMuseum is easy search access for the first time to the newspapers of the Isle of Man from 1792 held in Manx National Heritage’s library. However, at the moment there is a cut off date of 1960; so researching newspapers from 1961 to date can only be done on the microfilm readers in the Reading Room. Although we will steadily make available baptism, marriage and burial information from all the parish registers on the island, at present you will still need to visit the Reading Room for anything other than baptism records from 1870 -1878. Similarly, the full extent of our extensive photographic archive will take some time to make accessible through the iMuseum. There are already several thousand available, however, and it is worth checking out the iMuseum for photographs of Douglas (now) and Tynwald Hill (coming in April) and people whose surnames begin with “A”. Photographs will be continually added so please check with staff at the iMuseum or Reading Room to find out which facility will be best for your research and if you’ve registered interest you will receive regular updates on new additions to the iMuseum digital collections. Ends