Expert digitisation consultants
Inhouse collection & delivery service
Accredited digitisation studio team
Highly accurate results
Instantaneous digital content searches
Capture data from any material type
Showcase your collections online
Improve access & discoverability 
Fully immersive virtual experiences
Flexible, Scalable, and Secure – PastView delivers everything a digital collection needs in a comprehensive SaaS platform.
Our team at TownsWeb have developed a leading access & discovery software to publish and manage digital collections through PastView, our dedicated online platform.
PastView allows you to securely host, share, and curate your archives, creating engaging digital experiences for staff, stakeholders, and the worldwide public.
With powerful search, discovery, and management features, collections are brought to life, positioning them as strategic assets for your organisation.
KEY FEATURES:
- Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) effortlessly transcribe documents making them keyword searchable.
- Audio-Visual Transcription (AVT) converts every spoken word into keyword searchable text.
- Facial Recognition and Automated Tagging enhances discoverability & access.
- Book Explorer with immersive page turning, like you’re holding the book in your hands.
- Deep-Zoom allows you to examine every intricate detail of photographs and text.
- 360° Object Viewer to spin and inspect your 3D models & artifacts from every angle.
You get secure storage, enhanced access, immersive engagement, and revenue possibilities through numerous monetisation opportunities.
How can PastView be used?
Tailor PastView to meet your digital access and discovery objectives, whether you’re opening collections to the public, restricting access for internal use, or unlocking revenue through monetisation. Flexible configuration puts you in control.
Who’s PastView for?
- Cultural Heritage Archives – Unlock collection value with smart tools and full archive autonomy.
- Government – Protect staff time and resources with secure, streamlined archive access.
- Industry – Boost brand value and take control of your digital assets.
- Military – Honour key figures and events with respectful, identity-aware curation.
- Lifestyle & Luxury Brands – Showcase heritage, packaging, and milestones to power marketing and storytelling.
- Magazine Collections – Digitise and showcase periodicals with searchable archives that engage readers and preserve publishing heritage.
MANAGE
Start by uploading your full archive in one go, or build your collections gradually, applying access controls and activating features as and when you need them.
PUBLISH
Choose from an extensive suite of publishing tools, each crafted to enrich and elevate your digital collections.
SHARE
Select features that enable you to share your collections, generating income and enhancing engagement.
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What our clients say
Client satisfaction is everything to us, read what some of them have to say about our services
Working in the vault, we are fortunate to be able to flick through photograph albums, read correspondence files, and watch old film footage from years gone by... However, this is the first time that we have been able to open up our cultural heritage for everyone to explore – wherever they are in the world. It is a very exciting moment for the Archives team.
Tina Staples
Global Head of Archives
With PastView we are now able to edit our content and manage our online data in a way we were never able to do before. Incorporating a legacy system into a new format was understandably not straight-forward. However, the team at TownsWeb were especially patient and approachable; being keen to ensure that the system met our needs - which it certainly does.
Dr Sebastian Puncher
Deputy Creator
We are always looking for ways to improve the benefits we provide to our members. ARC Magazine has always been a key benefit and the last 18 months has seen it transformed with its move to online publication. Hosting on the PastView platform takes this to a new level and provides even more benefit with the great search function and the ability to access all the back issues, going back to 2011, in one place.
John Chambers
Chief Executive
The value of any collection is only ever fully realised when its contents are accessible, so we needed a user-friendly platform that did not sacrifice the needs of serious research. We needed a way to showcase the breadth and depth of our collections in an attractive way that offered powerful, customisable search options when users required them.
Gerard Sargent
Digitisation & Outreach Co-ordinator
The Business Archives Council of Scotland has been delighted to work with Townsweb Archiving and their PastView platform to make our journal back catalogue available to all. PastView has transformed how we can search the 100s of articles published across the journals since 1977, allowing users to discover the rich resource of articles about Scottish business and industrial history.
Kiara King
Deputy Convenor
Find out more at pastview.com