Mary Evans Picture Library Unlocks Nation's Past With The History Album

Mary Evans Picture Library, the specialist source for images of history, has announced its new user generated content website, The History Album.
Launched at the National History Show at Olympia in London earlier this month, The History Album is designed to bring to light photographs which form a unique view of our heritage and would otherwise remain unseen.
The library, which has been supplying publishing and the media with historical pictures for over 40 years, is bringing its expertise within the image industry to provide a platform for viewing, uploading, sharing, annotating and printing the pictures which have for years lain undiscovered in keepsake boxes, albums and attics around the country.
Paul Brown, Managing Director at Mary Evans Picture Library, said: "Our heritage is there to be discovered and shared. Although we are a commercial business, we wanted to start The History Album, because we felt there was no other online facility which made the sharing of photographs, the sharing of history and connecting with the past so accessible, and which would be backed by a high level of historical expertise."
The easy-to-use site will allow users to upload scanned photographs and to comment and add essential keywords, which will make them searchable to other users and family history researchers. Other features enable users to order prints of their chosen photograph and to share their favourite images with others.
Brown said: "Social networking web sites can be said to be the phenomenon of the noughties. This takes the concept a step further - a historical networking site, linking not only places and family names but also a shared love of images of the past. The latter is the foundation on which Mary Evans Picture Library is built, and so we hop that the public get as much pleasure from this site as we do from working with images every day.
Though in its infancy, the site is already growing, and will shortly be linked to a network of other historical sites to generate interest.
The History Album can be found at: www.thehistoryalbum.com.
(KMcA/JM)