
500,000 records at your fingertips
Kresen Kernow – a new home for Cornwall’s archives
Kresen Kernow is the new centre for public records for the County of Cornwall, opened in September 2019 at a brand new location in Redruth. Surface Impression was commissioned to create a website for the centre (in both English and Cornish) including access to the county’s archive and reference library records. We created a single search interface that spans 500,000 records of documents, photographs, books and maps. The site includes:
- Comprehensive, but easy to use search interface with facets and date-based searching
- A very high speed ElasticSearch index generated automatically from Cornwall County Council’s Axiell Calm and Talis collections management systems
- Events, online exhibitions, book-reading interfaces, visitor information and more
- A volunteer portal, where online volunteers can assist with the transcription and cataloguing of documents through an easy to use interface
- Ecommerce functionality, integrated with the County’s back-office systems (Capita) to allow the purchase of research assistance and photographic reproduction licenses