Issues in participative use of an historic city millennial Web site

Staff at the University of the West of England (UWE) have been engaged with other agencies in a collaborative process to create a millennial Web site for the citizens and city of Wells. The development of this site on the WWW is a part of a wider investigation which is both an attempt to understand the effective design of Web-based records of localities in terms of content and structure, as well as to set up a method for recording historic sites. The initial goals are to: record the built environment at the turn of the millenium; integrate this with existing records and archives; create a vehicle for the general public to contribute to records; and assist all sections of the community in gaining a richer understanding of their heritage. This paper examines the expectations of the agencies involved, the manner in which these have been implemented on the Web using multimedia, and the feedback and response to date, which has in turn modified the focus of the project.