Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture

This exciting two-year project, 2023-2025, will bring together thousands of people in East Lancashire, of different ages and backgrounds, to make the amazing collections of historic photographs in their libraries more accessible, inclusive and sustainable.

With a budget of £222,000 (£192,000 provided by the National Lottery Heritage Fund), the project will see schools, community groups and individuals in Burnley, Pendle and Hyndburn invited and encouraged to

• Explore their rich photographic heritage and help make digital versions of 100,000 images in the library collections.
• Create new collections by finding significant existing images from within their communities and by taking new photographs that reflect life now
• Share both old and new images, online – through Red Rose Collections - and offline, in ways that engage even more people in a creative and fun way.

An inclusive volunteering programme will be at the heart of what we do, with 75 digitisation and research volunteer opportunities created across 4 project hubs based in local libraries in Accrington, Burnley, Nelson and Colne.

We are recruiting volunteers for this project. Apply to be a Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture volunteer.

A key project aim is to ensure that the library photographic collections reflect the diversity of the communities in East Lancashire. For example, 15% of people in Burnley and Hyndburn are of South Asian heritage, and in Pendle it's 27%, but this is not reflected in the collections - the project will help redress this imbalance.

Contact us by email archives@lancashire.gov.uk or phone 01772 533039 if you want to know more about the project, particularly if you are interested in getting involved.

 Thanks to National Lottery players

We are also grateful to the Friends of Lancashire Archives for their support of this project.