28 Oct 08

Extracts from the diary of 494 Sergeant Joseph Cecil Thompson of the 9th Battalion AIF. He was the band leader for the 9th Battalion, and as Sergeant, was in charge of the stretcher bearers at Gallipoli. Images of the diary were contributed to the archive by Ellen Thompson from Queensland, Australia, Joseph's granddaughter.

Oxford University’s Great War Archive has been highly commended in the THE awards just days before its launch on 11 November 2008, the 90th anniversary of Armistice.

The archive was shortlisted in the ‘outstanding ICT initiative of the year’ category but despite just missing out on the award, the team, led by Oxford’s English Faculty and Computing Services, were delighted to receive a special commendation.

The aim of the Great War Archive was to collect together material related to the First World War held by members of the public to help keep the memory alive of the sacrifices made during World War One.

Members of the public submitted a huge variety of memorabilia, from photographs, letters and diaries to various artefacts related to the war.

Director of the project, Stuart Lee said: ‘We are thrilled to get this recognition from the Times Higher and JISC over our achievements with the Great War Archive project. We believe we have demonstrated a new way of involving the public in a major research project, and pointed the way for future digitisation projects, and it is fantastic to be commended in such a highly prestigious national award ceremony against very fierce competition'.

More than 40 projects from across the UK submitted entries for the JISC/THE Outstanding ICT initiative of the year award, making the award one of the most heavily entered of the twenty THE awards being made this year.