There is currently an increased understanding of the importance of sketchbooks to provide a space which can be used to develop creative and critical thinking skills. This is evidenced through projects such as Sketchbooks in Schools and 1001 Journals, as well as through books written around the subject, websites for schools on how best to integrate sketchbooks/journals into the curriculum, blogs and forums discussing their strengths, and online galleries and shared web spaces enabling all interested parties to generate and co-create a shared platform for learning.

Sketchbooks offer great potential as a medium of expression for all, by means of drawing, note-taking, collecting, and so on. Children do not question that they can be creative, but as we grow older, our confidence in expressing ourselves through writing texts or making objects and images recedes. As lecturers in the Schools of Art, Design and Media and Creative Technology at the University of Portsmouth, we promote the importance of sketchbooks as a visually creative way for individuals to express ideas, communicate concepts, provide a space and opportunity to question, reflect and analyse their own work and thoughts, and express their individual voice.

Building on a successful inter-departmental project in The University of Portsmouth in 2008 titled ‘Visual Diaries’, a voluntary student/staff collaborative project between The School of Art, Design and Media and The School of Creative Technologies. The success of which propelled us into thinking of how we could reach a wider audience externally from the University throughout the city. Libraries are always seen as the centre of a city’s community and a perfect focal point to reach the masses. Following positive feedback from the Portsmouth Library Service staff, we felt that there could be real benefits from offering these opportunities to a much wider audience, allowing a greater number and variety of participants to experience creativity and interactivity and to view others’ ideas. Introducing the sketchbook to library users as an experimental vehicle for the individual seemed the way to help people to regain confidence in creativity. The partnership between Portsmouth Library Service and the University of Portsmouth would be vitally important to making this project a success, using expertise from both institutions to organise planned events in the library and thus allowing the project to reach various groups across the spectrum of the community.

Historically, libraries have not been places where people were encouraged to write or draw in books, for good reasons. We were aware that to promote this project to the public we needed the library staff to embrace the project and have a feeling of ownership. We felt that it was important for library staff and our students to involve themselves through workshops, allowing them to encourage and engage with the public. Technology provides a way to store, develop and showcase this work, with the internet used as a rich resource to inform, educate and entertain, and specifically to allow the books to be promoted.

The knowledge and techniques required for the construction of an online depository emerged from two concurrent research projects using new initiatives in visualisation and content management strategies for web-based interactive environments. ImageXchange is a collaborative research environment linking international cross-cultural educational projects in image-based communication. The Ministry of Books is an online knowledgebase supporting the research and production of artists’ books.