Gasworks To Dome

Suggested basis for text for new home page. Please play with it! – Rib

Gasworks to Dome is a collection of oral history and photographs, all about East Greenwich and the Greenwich peninsula within living memory.
It’s NOT a definitive history of the area (see Links for other related sites). No, this site has been put together by you, the Users.

SO, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?

You can listen to extracts of interviews (‘audio extracts’) or even to whole interviews.
You can look at old or contemporary photos.
You can go into the site through any of the categories (dates, streets, industries, landmarks…).
You can add comments, either to particular photos or to audio extracts, or more generally on the discussion page.
You can upload photos of your own onto the site.
You can help by ‘tagging’ audio extracts (putting them into categories and linking them to photos) or by writing summaries or transcripts of interviews.
You can even add new interviews, but for that you’ll need to contact the Administrator.

So there’s lots to do. But first, just explore the site. It’s all yours!

And a suggested potted history of the site. Please play with this too. –Rib

A Brief History so far (1.11.06)

Gasworks to Dome first came into existence in the autumn of 2005, the brainchild of Independent Photography. We knew we wanted to create a website of photos and oral history of East Greenwich and the Peninsula (and we soon limited it to within living memory) to capture the recent history of this fascinating area, but we didn’t know how, so we set about learning about some of the possible technologies.

Our first attempt was simply a blog, but this turned out to be too formless. We didn’t want an inflexible, unresponsive, non-interactive site (a book on the web) but on the other hand we did want to make clear a network of relationships between images and audio, and a blog really wasn’t right for this. So, under the technological guidance of Tom, this site was developed – and it was developed while the content was being collected (we have still really only just started on the content – there is so much more to collect) and it was developed while that content was being loaded onto it. The whole thing was very much an organic process! It has been a matter of continual redevelopment, finding out what works and what doesn’t and changing things as we went along.

There were already some interviews (from the research for the local community play ‘Chuck Out Your Mouldies’)but we needed (and still need) more, so interview training was organised, there was publicity in the press, and we carried out new interviews, both of individuals and groups. Similarly, Independent Photography already had a collection of old photographs, but we needed (and still need) more. Many people have donated photos, particularly Mary Mills (old ones) and ‘Eeyore’ (contemporary ones); in addition some photography training took place and new photos were taken, particularly for the Then and Now comparisons.

For about a year we held weekly sessions with a group of committed participants, scanning, tagging, loading material, interviewing, transcribing and so on. Then, in the autumn of 2006, the site was officially handed over to the world (the world had of course had access to it long before this). Now it belongs to everyone – to add to it, edit it, enrich it and learn from it. Enjoy!