     Help pageWe anticipate that anyone with a little experience and intuition should be able to find their way around this site without too much trouble. We recognize, however, that some users may not be too familiar with browsing web sites and the information on this page is intended to help them. You can scroll down to read the whole help page, or jump to a specific section: The Website in GeneralAcross the top of the main screen you will see five 'tabs' labelled:
All the main parts of the web site can be reached by positioning your pointer over one of these tabs and clicking. Wherever these tabs are visible you can use them to move directly between the different areas of the site. BREADCRUMB TRAILS Breadcrumb trails are used in many parts of the site to help you find your way around. At the top of the screen the path you have followed through the site is often shown with the page titles separated by this symbol: > You can use these trails to jump back to an earlier page by clicking on the page title in this list.
About our Archive ProjectThe first section, About our Archive Project contains background information about the Woodcraft Folk's project to sort out and 'digitise' its archives. Digitising is the process of making computer images of documents so that they can be stored for the future. The benefit of digitized archives is that computer systems can then be used to sort, search and display documents quickly and easily. By making the documents accessible over the internet they can be viewed by a far greater number of people that could ever see them in a library in London. Not all the information on this page can be seen on your screen at once so you will need to use the scroll bar on the right hand side to move the page up and down. Clicking on one of the orange headings on the right hand side of the page will take you to another page of relevant information e.g. copyright acknowledgements or credits. Log inYou do not need to register as a user of the site if you just want to view documents from the archives or access the educational activities. However, if you wish to user the Folk Friends section of the site you will need to register and log in. Registration only needs to be completed once. After that you will either log in to the site each time you visit or you can tell the system to remember you so that you don't need to log in each time. REGISTERING To register, click on the Log In tab at the top of the main screen. Then click the REGISTER button in the orange box. This will display the 'Sign Up' form. Fill in the form - the boxes marked by a * must be completed, the others are optional. In the password box you should enter the password you want to use when logging into the site. Make sure that you remember what you have entered in this box (write it down somewhere!) or you may have difficulty logging in in future. When you have finished, click JOIN. The next page which appears describes the conditions which users of the site are expected to accept. Clicking the AGREE button will register your details and log you in. You can now use the tabs at the top of the screen to visit any parts of the site. LOGGING IN If you have previously registered and you want to log in, click the Log In tab at the top of the screen. Fill in your e-mail address and the password you chose when you registered. If you want the system to remember you so that you don't need to log in again in future, click in the box next to the words "Keep me logged in?" Then click the LOG IN button. USER PROFILE and LOGGING OUT Once you have registered and logged in you will see that the Log In tab has changed and is now labeled Options. Clicking on this allows you to make changes to your 'user profile' - the information which you input when you registered - and add additional information about yourself. Further down the page you can make changes to the 'groups' you may have joined through Folk Friends (see 'Folk Friends' below). There is also a button at the top right-hand side of the page to click if you want to log out. Explore the ArchivesThis is where the archived documents can be viewed. There are over 6000 items in the archive, and some of them are many pages long. You may just want to BROWSE around, in which case the documents have been put into categories to make it easier to find things you are interested in. If you are looking for a particular document or documents about a particular subject or from a particular time period, you will need to use the SEARCH facilities. BROWSE From the Explore the Archives page, click on the 'Browse around the archive' button. You will now see a list of categories. Click on any of the category titles will open up a new page either showing you a list of sub-categories to choose from or showing details of the documents held in that category. You can have the documents listed in order of catalogue reference number, title (alphabetical), date, or the number of pages. If you have any preference, click on which of these you would like at the top of the page and the documents will (if necessary) be re-ordered. Under each title you will see some of the information which is held on the database about this document, for example, the year it was published, the number of pages in it, etc. VIEWING A DOCUMENT Now choose a document you would like to view from the list. You can either click on the small picture (thumbnail) of the document, or on its title. The next page which appears gives the full 'Catalogue entry' - all the information in the database about this document. Below the information you will see thumbnail pictures of all the pages of the document. If there are more than 15 pages, only the first fifteen thumbnails will be shown. At the bottom of the page you can choose to see the next set of pages by clicking on the next number in the list next to the words 'Go to sheet' . Clicking on the image of the first page of the document, or the title, at the top of the Catalogue Entry page will open up the first page of the document. You can jump to any page in the document by clicking on the thumbnail which represents it. The bar which appears above the document allows you to move backwards and forward through the page of the document, or return to the Catalogue Entry page. There is also a drop-down menu which lets you jump to other destinations, for example, to go back to the category of documents you were browsing through, or jump to another section of the site.
The drop-down menu also allows you to view the document in different ways. By default documents are shown in the jpg graphics format but you can switch to viewing them in pdf format if you wish. (Don't worry about this if these formats mean nothing to you!) SEARCH The other way to view documents is to search for something in particular. Type a word or words you want to search for into the box below the words "Search for" and then click the SEARCH button. This will search through the titles and descriptions of the documents for the words you have specified. If documents with these words in their title or description are found a list of them will be displayed. If you know the catalogue reference number of a particular document you can access it by typing this into the search box too. To view any of these documents listed in the search results follow the instructions above for viewing a document. In addition to searching the documents in the archive you can also search the 'memories' which have been contributed by members of the site (see Folk Friends below). To do this click on the little round button next to the word 'Memories' in the search box. Clicking on the ADVANCED SEARCH option in the search box brings up a new search box which allows you to specify more things about the search to be carried out. I FEEL LUCKY! Clicking on the 'I Feel Lucky!' button will display for you a document picked from the archives by a completely random, lucky dip. Have a go - all sorts of fascinating things turn up here! It's a great way to explore the Folk's history if you are not quite sure where to start. Folk FriendsThis is the Woodcraft Folk's very own 'Friends Re-united'. You can join a group, on-line, which you may once (or still) have belonged to in real life. You can contact old friends (if they've joined Folk Friends already) and you can contribute your memories of the Folk to help record as much of our heritage as possible. When you click on the Folk Friends tab, you are taken to the Folk Friends page. If you have not yet registered or logged in to the site you are offered another opportunity to do so (see 'Log In' above). You can browse the groups and memories without logging in but you won't be able to join any groups, post up your memories, or contact friends. Under the heading 'Memory of the Day' you can read a memory picked at random from those submitted by members of the site. If there is not enough space to display the whole memory, then you will be able to read the rest by clicking on 'More' at the bottom. GROUPS AND PEOPLE Clicking on the 'Browse Groups and People' button will bring up a list of all the towns were 'virtual' groups have been started on this site. Clicking on the name of a town will display a list of the Districts and their groups in that town. Again, clicking on any particular group will display the list of members with details of when they joined and left. Wherever you see the name of a member that is underlined, clicking on the name will display a page of information about that person - the groups they belonged to and memories they have added to the site. There is also a button on the page to 'Email this person'. Clicking this will allow you to complete a form that will send an email message to this person. Please note that we do not give out people's email addresses and you will not be able to see the person's email address anywhere on the site. You can email them through the site and they can then choose whether or not to reply to you directly. If a group which you have belonged to has not yet been added to the site you can add it but clicking the ADD GROUP button on the 'People and Groups' page. Fill in the information about the group on the form and click ADD GROUP at the bottom when you have completed it. If the District your group belonged to is not listed in the drop-down list of Districts, choose 'District not in list' at the bottom and you will be asked to enter information about that District when you click on ADD GROUP. You can also search for groups or people - type the name into the search box on the 'Groups and People' page, choose either 'People' or 'Groups' by clicking the little round button next to one of these and then click SEARCH. MEMORIES Clicking on 'Browse Memories' will bring up a list of topics under which members have contributed their memories. There is a button to click if you want to ADD A TOPIC. Clicking on any of the topics will then show a list of the memories and an ADD A MEMORY button to click if you want to post up a memory of your own under this topic. If you click on one of the titles listed, the memory will be displayed and you can post a message in reply to it by clicking the REPLY TO THIS MESSAGE button. Time TravellersThe Time Travellers section contains three educational activities for 10 -15 year olds based on material from the archives. There are two versions of each activity: an on-line version which can be undertaken by anyone sat at a computer which is connected to the internet; and an off-line version of the same game, designed to be undertaken by a group of young people and without access to the internet. To play any of the activities on-line, click where it says 'Click here to play!' (you may have to scroll down the page to reach this). Each activity has a number of introductory screens with BACK and NEXT buttons to click to move through them. You will then come to a page of instructions on how the activity works. The off-line activities can be downloaded from the web site and printed out for use with your Woodcraft Folk or school group. They are available in pdf format and you will need Adobe Acrobat to open and print them. If you do not have Acrobat installed on you computer click HERE to download it. Each of the off-line activities requires a number of documents from the archives and, to ensure that these are of good enough quality to be easily read when printed, the file containing them is rather large. For this reason, the instructions for the activity and the documents have been saved in separate files. You can download the instructions first to decide whether you want to try the activity before spending time downloading the documents. The 'Part 2' pdf files for each activity may take over half-an-hour to download if you do not have a very fast internet connection. To download an activity, please right-click the link and choose "Save target as". |
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