24 Hour Museum Editor Jon Pratty (centre) and Features Editor Richard Moss (left) are congratulated by Ian Whatmore, head of E-Government and Government CIO. Photo: Daniel Deme.

The 24 Hour Museum, the UK’s national virtual museum, has won the 2005 new Statesman New Media Award for Education for its City Heritage Guides.

Commissioned by the Department for Culture Media and Sport initiative Culture Online, the 24 Hour Museum City Heritage Guides celebrate and explore the rich diversity of cultural heritage on offer in 10 English cities.

The guides cover Birmingham, Brighton & Hove, Bristol, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle & Gateshead and Norwich and feature news, trail features, cultural listings and contributions from local community groups.

Presented at a ceremony in London on July 05 2005 it’s the second time the 24 HM has won the New Statesman New Media Award for education, following the national site’s 2001 triumph.

24 Hour Museum Editor, Jon Pratty explained that the City Heritage Guides are an important outlet for the site's regional content. Photo: Daniel Deme.

Speaking after the presentation, 24 HM Editor Jon Pratty explained that the award celebrates the efforts of a wide range of regional partners who contribute to the sites.

"The City Heritage Guides are an important local direction for the 24 Hour Museum and the New Statesman has recognised that they are the work of students, the work of museums and the work of individuals who send their content in through Storymaker – they pull together a whole host of local content from a really wide variety of sources," he said.

"It’s the beginning of our long term development plans for working more closely in the regions and we hope that people will continue to approach us, add to the project and partner up with us in the future," added Jon.

The City Heritage Guides provide updated news, local history and cultural listings for 10 English cities.

The key themes of this year’s New Media Awards were “ingenuity, modernisation and accessibility” with the aim of rewarding those who have achieved something of benefit to others, whether in their community or society at large.

The 24 HM City Heritage Guides provide a wealth of information from news and local history to local museum listings. Each one offers an educational experience presented in an engaging and exciting way, encouraging users to visit the cities.

Users are invited to submit their own experiences and stories using a simple online authoring tool called Storymaker while each site is fully searchable and regional news feeds to send the content out across the web are currently being tested.

The 24 HM has worked on the project with a variety of partners including museums and galleries, local community groups and individuals.

A network of student journalists, funded by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council’s (MLA) Renaissance in the Regions programme, keeps the sites updated with fresh news stories.

"This award for City Heritage Guides is fantastic news," said Claire Harcup from Culture Online.

"This is a great example of a Culture Online project that has succeeded in connecting people in a fresh and exciting way. By giving people access to easy authoring tools, City Heritage Guides demonstrates that real people are capable of producing outstanding web content. Congratulations to everyone involved."

Explore City Heritage Guides now!