How To Navigate Recollect - A Beginners Guide
Welcome to Recollect, BRM's online archive!
The vision of our BRM Recollect site is to create a trusted digital repository and virtual museum for all things BRM – whether owned by BRM, the BRM Association, or by trusted individuals who have generously provided their collections for others to see. By sharing this material, some of which has never been seen outside the Archives, we hope to inspire and encourage both old fans and newcomers to explore and experience the storied history of this great British enterprise and become a part of the BRM Community.
Recollect might seem overwhelming at first as there is an absolute wealth of information at your fingertips but we hope this guide will help you browse more confidently and perhaps even contribute some of your own BRM memories!
Where to start?
When you first visit the BRM Recollect page, you will be brought to the home page. You can navigate all over the site from here, it all depends on what you'd want to see!
If you aren't sure what you'd want to look at first, you might be interested in the BRM Interactive Timeline. This tracks the entire history of BRM, from the pre-war E.R.A days all the way to the final days of the races. If you click on many of the images on this timeline, they will lead you to more information. Some will take you to a summary of the year, complete with the cars and drivers that raced that year, whilst others might take you to pages that are relevant to that date's entry, such as a driver's profile, a model of car, or a racing venue. Feel free to click and explore!
The other tiles on the front page, such as the one pictured with the arrow beside it, will take you to a "Collections" page. A collection page is just what it sounds like; A curated gallery of any relevant images and files that have all been sorted into the same place. If you were to click the image beside the arrow above, for example, you would get any item on the site that has been sorted into the "BRM: The 1970s" Collection. This might be cars, images, documents, even video recordings all related to the 70s.
But what if you don't know what you want to look for?
In this instance, you can select 'Browse All', as highlighted by the orange arrow to the right here, which will let you see absolutely everything that has been contributed to the site, displayed in the order it has been contributed with the most recently contributed appearing first.
From here, you can navigate around as you please; if you click the "Item Type" beneath the "Filter By" heading on the left hand side, it will drop down a menu for all the different types of content available. Most are self explanatory.
-Cars will bring you to the BRM vehicles.
-Documents will bring you to paperwork, such as magazine and newspaper clippings. Letters will bring you to personal correspondence and postcards.
-Images will display all the different pictures, both historical and otherwise.
-Collections will display the different 'collection' groups, much like the front page, though there are a greater variation of what is available.
-Both 'People' and 'Personnel' will lead you to the pages of those who were/are involved with BRM. Personnel are those who worked directly for the company, People are those who are closely affiliated with it. This is similar with 'Places' and 'Venues'. 'Places' are locations of interest specifically to BRM, 'Venues' are the tracks and circuits.
How to navigate the pages
So now you've found a page that interests you, you might see several things on there. This page we are using as an example pictured belongs to Graham Hill. At the top of the page there will be a little bit of a biography, and any content that has been tagged to contain him will be below. This might be images, documents, or recordings!
Along the right hand side as you can see (highlighted by the orange arrow closest), there are other 'connections'. These are topics closely related to Graham Hill, such as the cars he drove, the years he drove for etc. If you decide that after reading his page you would want to specifically see images of the P261, you could click that link on the side and it would take you to the P261's article, and anything else that has been attributed to the P261.
But what if you see something that is wrong, or you think something needs amending?
If you see on the above image, the little 'pencil inside a box' symbol highlighted by the orange arrow on the upper left, this is the 'suggest an edit' button- if there isn't a button there, we are currently not accepting edits for that entry. From there, you can write any such edits you think are needed, and submit it for the moderators to look at for approval.
What about if you want to submit your own content?
If you want to add your own content, it's easy!
Along the left hand side of your screen on the orange band, you will see an 'upload' button. Click that, and it will bring you to a screen like the one pictured above.
Click a tab and give your contribution a title and save it. Then if you click the ‘Tell us a few Extra details” button, it will bring you to a page where you can expand on your story.
Please remember: This website is for all ages, so censor your stories where appropriate!
Fill in as few or as many details as you like, and when you are done, hit “Submit & Finish” to submit your content for approval.
Sometimes, your content might be declined; it might be that the image isn't BRM related, or something in it might be deemed inappropriate. When this happens, most likely the moderator will give you a suggestion as to what to change in order to get it approved.
Please note: If you only submit the title on one of the “Tell us” contributions, include no content and submit it, it will register that it is blank and it will be deleted.
Uploading an image, document or video is much the same.
Upload your images by clicking the ‘choose files’ button and either highlighting multiple images or selecting one and then the orange (+) mark to select more individual images, save your progress, add any additional details you like, and submit!
Please note though: Videos have a maximum size limit of 1GB per file. Anything larger can’t be uploaded.
Recollections and Image Tags
When you are scrolling through the pages, you might find something you want to leave a comment on. Maybe you knew someone in the photo, or you have a memory of a particular event. This is where 'recollections' come in.
In the image to the left, you can see the 'add recollection' button on the left hand side of the screen. If you have something you'd want to add, click that button and type in your remark. When approved, this will be displayed on the side of the image!
Tagging images is very similar.
If when you are looking through the images you can see something that you recognize, you can 'tag' the image. The 'add tag' button is along the left hand side too (As highlighted by the arrow), just above the recollection button on anything that has tagging enabled.
When you click it, it will ask you what you are tagging; it could be a venue, or a person, or if they were directly involved with BRM, they will be considered personnel. select what it is you want to tag, and then write what you like!
Happy exploring, and we look forward to seeing your contributions!