THE DOMESDAY PROJECT

Abstract Nine hundred years after the publication of the first domesday book on the orders of William the Conqueror, the BBC in London have produced an interactive videodisc program which gives a picture of Britain in april/may 1985. Technically the system is made up of a laservision player, monitor computer, disc drives and a trackerball. What the program represents in intellectual and educational input transcends the technology. Something over a million people took part in the project 1400 schools collected information, formatted it and sent it into the project, many individuals covered any gaps left by the schools, universities checked this data and that coming from national source (ministries, commissioned authors, newspaper and the universities themselves) and formatted it for the discs, broadcasters and other production agencies made special visual essays and picture collections, programmers and librarians devised thesauri and routings. Up to now a vast amount has been learned about the educational value of collecting data some of this experience will be demonstrated by video presentations. What remains to be seen is how it will be used over a longer period in schools.