Connected Histories is featured today on the BBC website.
A search engine is being created to help historians find useful sources.
The Connected History project will link up currently separate databases of source materials.
Once complete, it will give academics or members of the public a single site that lets them search all the collections.
Once completed the search engine will index digitised books, newspapers, manuscripts, genealogical records, maps and images that date from 1500-1900.
An eye catching enterprise – but will it really provide free access for individuals to those printed sources – including The Bibliography of British and Irish History – in public libraries and elsewhere that have been digitalised by private companies and are now largely restricted to current staff and students of HE institutions?