Welcome to the site.

This site presents social and political campaigning in Wales during the twentieth century through the use of digitised images of original documents, photographs and sound and video files. The campaigns voice the rights of various groups, for example the right of women to vote, or the right of miners and quarrymen to fair wages and decent working conditions.

The material has been selected from various collections in the National Library of Wales, especially The Welsh Political Archive. [Click on the words that are underlined in the site for further information].

The material can be accessed directly from the site map, the search facility, or the time-line. It is also possible to access the material thematically. The site is divided into six themes - The Ballot Box, Labour Struggles, War and Peace, The Welsh Language, Devolution and The Water Industry. Clicking on the thumbnail images within the themes leads you to a larger and more detailed image.

Click on the picture!

Further information about bibliography, educational notes and copyright are available on the Ymgyrchu! home page. The site is written in three languages, Welsh, English and Spanish and it is possible to change from one language to another at any point in the site.

Methods of Campaigning

During the twentieth century there was a variety of campaigns. During election campaigns loud speakers, election leaflets, badges and posters and radio and television broadcasts were used. Some campaigners would campaign from door to door or on the telephone whilst others would address public meetings.

Pressure groups, or campaigns that concentrate on certain issues, also use these methods, as well as others such as striking, picketing, marching, singing protest songs, writing letters, displaying banners, taking part in public protests, fasting, signing petitions, writing graffiti, breaking the law and enduring prison for their beliefs.

Publishing was a popular way of circulating information, either in books, letters to newspaper editors, circulars, articles or propaganda leaflets. Election leaflets have developed considerably during the twentieth century, and political parties and other campaign groups are now using internet sites in their campaigns.

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Digitisation at the National Library of Wales

by the Librarian, Andrew M. W. Green M.A., Dip. Lib., A.L.A.

Campaign! forms part of the National Library's digitisation programme. Digitisation is now acknowledged as a key part of the Library's effort to open up its rich collections to a larger number and a wider range of users, in particular learners of all kinds. Through digital technologies, and through the medium of the internet and the World Wide Web, we have the ability to show to a world-wide audience items from our collections that were previously accessible only through a personal visit to the Library's building in Aberystwyth.

Campaign! was an experimental, short-term project. It began in October 1999 and came to an end in May 2000. Our immediate aim was to select images from our collections that would illustrate certain themes of interest to learners of all ages, and link them with explanatory texts. A further objective was for us to develop experience and skills in the various areas involved in digitisation, for example, scanning images, creating metadata, managing intellectual property rights and presenting information on the screen.

Campaign!'s sister project, Framed works [ http://cairsweb.llgc.org.uk/ffraworks.htm ], takes a different approach to digitisation, and offers images of most of the items in a single Library collection: paintings and other works housed in frames.

Over the next few years the Library will be scaling up its digitisation work, bringing texts, pictures and other material within the reach of learners, researchers, visitors and everyone with internet access.

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Multimedia files containing sound and video clips are offered on this site. Each video clip is offered in three formats: Apple QuickTime, Microsoft Windows Media and RealVideo. If you are using a browser such as Netscape 4 or Internet Explorer 5 the software (known as plugins) to playback these files may already be installed. If this is the case at least one of the formats offered should playback on your computer without the need to download any software. We recommend trying each of the formats offered before downloading any plugins. If a clip plays then the plugin for that format is on your machine already.

If the required plugin is not already on your machine a prompt should appear when you click on a media link. This will direct you to the site where the appropriate plugin can be found. Having installed the plugin it may be necessary to close and reopen your browser before any changes take effect.

Detailed help on each of the formats offered can be found at these sites:

QuickTime

Windows Media

Real Video

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Technical details

Digitising the Images

The images for the site were captured using a high resolution scanning digital camera. The resulting raw, archival scans were checked and transferred to a RAID unit via an Apple Talk network or removable drive. These files were backed up onto DLT tapes (un-compressed) for archival storage. Further copies of these scans were then resampled, processed and compressed using Adobe Photoshop V5.5 and Image Ready. Image size, colour depth, unsharp mask and compression settings were tweaked for the web to achieve the best compromise between legibility, image quality and file size. These files were then placed on the website. Thumbnail (+/- 150 x 175 pixels) images were also individually generated and placed on the theme index pages of the site.

The following standards were applied:

GENERAL PRINCIPLES:
Resolution: For archival TIFF's - As a minimum standard, attempt to reproduce originals at same size at 300 ppi. Use only optical resolutions.
Colour, tonal accuracy: For printed originals used the Macbeth chart to set black and white points and to check colour reproduction. For photographic and high contrast originals used the Kodak colour and grey-scale patch. Web images - gamma was adjusted to 2..2 to compensate for increased contrast on PC monitors.

THE EQUIPMENT USED:
Camera: Jenoptik Eyelike high resolution 6000 x 6000 pixel ccd scanning camera.
Lens: Micro-Nikkor 55mm, f2.8.
Workstation: Apple G4
Software: Adobe PhotoShop 5.5 and Image Ready 2.0.

Site Development

The site is graphically intensive, although efforts have been made to limit the size of files, and all images are previewed with thumbnails which indicate the file-size of the larger images. Navigational images have been kept to a minimum. The site was created using Macromedia Dreamweaver 2, Brooklyn HTML Assistant 1.0.4, Microsoft Notepad, Adobe PhotoShop 5.5 and Image Styler 2.0. It is not designed for any particular browser or screen resolution. It has been tested using Netscape Navigator 4.7, Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and Opera 3.60. To view the page source code you will need to set your browser Preferences/Character set to UTF-8.

Windows Media is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
QuickTime and the QuickTime Logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. The Get QuickTime Badge is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc., used with permission.
Real G2 with Flash® is a trademark of Macromedia and RealNetworks, Inc. Flash© 1997 Macromedia, Inc.

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Feedback

Please send your comments to: ymgyrchu@llgc.org.uk