About
The East London Theatre Archive (ELTA) project is the culmination of a two-year digitisation project funded by JISC. The project was led by the University of East London (UEL) with electronic support from the Centre for e-Research (CeRch) at King's College London. The project began in March 2007, the website was launched in March 2009 and the project ended in June 2009.
ELTA has created an invaluable online database with over 14,900 images and related metadata sourced from 3,368 archive items, as well as 17 contextual essays. It preserves unique endangered theatre archive collections through digitisation and allows academic audiences to explore East London's unique contribution to the development of theatre. In bringing together collections from different theatre organisations, venues and private collectors, which would otherwise be difficult if not impossible to access, it has produced one of the most significant and wonderful online resources, enhancing in a significant way the availability of digital resources in the performing arts sector. It gives researchers and students the opportunity to focus and research from 1827 to the present day.
One of the unique aspects of ELTA is that our partners took a step towards following a more coherent narrative, challenging notions of East London theatre as solely comprising 19th century music hall. The V&A Theatre Collections focused upon material sourced from 19th and early 20th century `lost' theatres, which have now disappeared. UEL on the other hand selected and digitised material from different collections, which dated largely from the 1970s up to the present day, relating to theatres that are still existent.
ELTA has created an opportunity, not only for archive material to be preserved and presented online, but also as a platform for academic debate and collaborations, by commissioning contextual essays, by hosting events, such as the ELTA conference The East End Seen Though Performance at the V&A Sackler Centre, and the website launch. Cathy Haill, as well as John Earl, have both produced beautiful essays as part of ELTA's deliverable, however, it has achieved so much more than it was first anticipated and produced a magnificent insight into different areas of 19th to 20th centuries with most positive feedback from students and users interested in theatre history. The essays have truly brought the content of ELTA together and linked disparate collections in a unique way.
Furthermore ELTA has created and established successful partnerships between higher education, the heritage sector, local theatres and community organisations. It allows for ELTA to grow beyond the completion stage and to embrace new opportunities, nurturing further developments and future projects.
The digital images and appropriate metadata are easy accessible on the ELTA website, which was officially launched on the 4th March 2009.
- JISC Final Report (2.5MB PDF)
East London Theatre Archive
