MUSEUMS, libraries and community groups throughout the region have joined forces to create a vast archive of the North-East.

The ambitious online project, Tomorrow's History, contains information on every subject, from the memories of residents of sheltered housing units to the 40 year history of Egglescliffe School, in Teesside.

Created with £600,000 of Heritage Lottery Fund, the archive contains a huge collection of digital photographs, documents, film and television footage.

More than 100 community groups and projects also had an input, submitting their stories and histories.

They were guided by community project leaders from the North-East Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, who showed them how to carry out research and prepare material.

The website contains social history, from memories of South Shields' Asian community, to stories from the 7th Newcastle Company of the Boys Brigade.

It was launched at a ceremony in County Hall, Durham, attended by representatives from some of the groups involved.

Stockton Borough Councillor Alex Cunningham, who attended, said: "The Tomorrow's History website is an ambitious and groundbreaking project.

"It created many technical and organisational challenges and is the result of an enormous amount of hard work by a very large number of people and organisations, from planning in the early stages, through the project as it was created and in delivering a very exciting and innovative new resource for the region."

The website's 20,000 pages contain information supplied by the region's five universities, 12 local authorities, four county record offices, museums, the Northern Region Film and Television Archive, on Teesside, and modern and historic maps.

The aim of www.tomorrows-history.com is to provide a resource for everyone, from children studying for school projects to academics wanting to access documents for research