New design and features on Am Baile website
The Highland Council's awarding-winning bi-lingual Highland history and culture website - Am Baile - has been refreshed with a new look design, improved navigation and new features.
Users can now experience enhanced navigation and additional links to new and existing features throughout the site thus making it easier to browse and enjoy the huge variety of materials and different media types on offer.
A new feature on Am Baile is the 'then and now' section. Here users can view photographs and compare and contrast the way locations in the Highlands have changed over the years. Photographs of buildings, castles, churches, monuments, streets and various locations are included in this fascinating collection that show how time has, or has not, in some cases changed parts of the Highlands.
Another new feature on Am Baile is the inclusion of a 'digital library' which allows access to some of Highland Libraries rare books such as the “Annals of the Disruption, St Kilda”. This is the publication of an evangelical preacher, who visited the island to preach to the people and had a profound effect on them. A new page-turning facility enables users to navigate in the digital library records from page to page just as you would with the real book.
Still within Am Baile is a fascinating photographic collection highlighting historic and modern photographs of towns, villages and landscapes as well as different aspects of Highland life and culture.
An audio collection contains Gaelic song and traditional music as well as a growing oral history archive. Listen to recordings on a wide variety of topics including: World War II memories; life on a Caithness croft; Cromarty fisherfolk dialect; Highland Railway recollections; and memories of old Inverness.
In the 'education zone' a variety of resources to help teachers and students with an interest in the heritage, culture and language of the Highlands are available. Schools can publish their school projects; learning resources can help pupils to explore the past and test their knowledge; and variety of fun & games are also available for children to enjoy quizzes, games, comics and cartoons.
An interactive map called 'Literary landscapes' features both past and present authors who have been inspired by the landscape of the Scottish Highlands and Islands.
Councillor Bill Fernie, Chairman of The Highland Council’s Education, Culture and Sport Service said: “We are very proud of this excellent resource and I’m confident that the new design and structure will appeal to existing users and attract new ones to the site.”
The Am Baile website is available at www.ambaile.org.uk. For further information on Am Baile contact: tel: 01463 251270 or e-mail: ambaile@highland.gov.uk