Birmingham is a city with a rich industrial heritage, and there’s no better place to explore this than the Library of Birmingham instance of Corals. It contains over 8000 illustrations and photos of the city, its buildings and people dating from the 1500s to the 2000s.
Client background
The Library of Birmingham opened in 2013 as a digitally connected library that could:
- Act as a global innovator in its sector
- Provide wider access to collections
- Engage new audiences
- Bring in additional revenue
To recognise this, they developed a range of innovative projects, such as:
- Mobile app for archives content
- Discovery touchtable
- Digital wall and signage
Project background
The Library of Birmingham instance is where our story begins. We created the platform in association with the library as part of its digital innovation programme.
Bringing together our digital expertise with the library’s knowledge of archives, we developed Corals as an intuitive, contemporary website to share photographic collections with a range of different audiences. Crucially this included those who were not typical library and archive users, but simply had an interest in the city.
The collection features over 8000 images from the library’s Warwickshire Photographic Survey (WPS). Started in 1890, the collection sought to document changes to the city’s social, economic and cultural landscape.
Project results
The Library of Birmingham has an accessible, intuitive and contemporary website to engage its audiences. With a user-friendly design, it is ideal for non-academic audiences who simply want to graze the collection, often on a mobile device.
Let’s build something together
Get in touch if you would like to learn more Corals.
A photo discovery platform 