Our skilled team takes great care in curating our primary source collections. This process yields high-quality products, as well as substantial benefits for all involved: BOA, our archival partners, and, ultimately, our users. We’d like to take this opportunity to outline the key steps!
Based on a proposal from a member of our content team (all of whom have a background in historical scholarship), we collaborate with staff at the relevant archives, libraries, and heritage institutions, as well as with external academics and heritage experts, to shape the collection.
The next step is equally important: conservation of the physical documents. This ensures that they remain in excellent condition for use by other researchers. The documents are then digitised to the highest standards, with the digitisation costs being borne by BOA.
Each image undergoes Optical Character Recognition (OCR), meaning that you can search for words or phrases. Our collections also employ the Universal Viewer (UV). This offers the “deep zoom” feature, allowing users to examine details in an image without lowering the quality. Collections that contain handwritten script benefit from Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) software, delivering a significant increase in search term accuracy.
As well as preparing marketing materials, our editorial team likewise ensure that collections are tagged, making them easier to explore. If you would like to learn more about our tags and search filters, please check out a guide that we prepared recently!
Collections are then reviewed by editorial boards composed of scholars and heritage experts. They also contribute supplementary materials, such as contextual essays, which complement articles produced by members of our team, as well as our innovative source-based teaching packs.
Finally, we should highlight that the digitised images that each institution has contributed are made available to them for free and in perpetuity. Our archival partners likewise receive royalties from any sales that we make!