The extensive holdings of the National Maritime Museum, set within the Greenwich World Heritage Site, provide the main focus for this project. Britain and the Sea is a richly illustrated examination through art and history of Britain's engagement with the sea in exploration, commerce, war and peace, directed at students and at the interested general public. The web is a natural vehicule for a project such as this, because it gives everyone access to descriptions, catalogues and essays about our collections, with the aim of making their many treasures better known. Naturally, we provide extensive links to materials elsewhere which can help complete and enrich the accounts which are woven around the physical objects in our collections. Because of its networking and multimedia capabilities, the web is a medium offering greater flexibility than the book, yet also capable of encouraging the same reliability and authority which are the hallmarks of the best examples of the print medium. Britain & the Sea is written and produced to the same high standards the NMM espouses for its print publications.
Britain & the Sea offers two types of access to the same underlying materials. The general pages, colourcoded to WHATCOLOUR, offer authoritative summaries of the material, and links to a selected range of illustrated examples. Unfolding from the general pages, and colourcoded to WHATCOLOUR, are the research pages, which offer in-depth and authoritative examinations of the main themes and their implications. With such a structure, the choice of where to survey and where to go deeper is in the user's own hands.
The works we feature are discussed in essays written to the highest standards. Each is accompanied by thumbnail illustrations (which the user may choose to enlarge), and references and bibliography both to print and electronic materials. Special features include an extensive account of Greenwich itself, which displays some of the best architecture in Britain; essays on the working of a large museum curating over HOWMANY objects in HOWMANY categories; and high-quality zoomable panoramaws of several of the largest or most detailed artworks.
This project therefore aims to cater to both a general interest, and to allow the user to delve down the ladder of pages to address chosen topics in detail. To satisfy both types of use, use is made of appropriate multimedia, and of links to high-quality web sites which can help illuminate our subject.
A second stage is projected, which will offer more materials in various media (photographs, maps and plans, drawings?) from our collections, and yet more links to other maritime collections world-wide.