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Sandwell Council - along with neighbouring councils - is looking for help to boost its online access to the areas historic records and museum services.Along with other local authorities in the Black Country, the council is opening up its archives by placing items and information online.Over the last three years, almost 140,000 items have been put on the web.Now it is holding a Hack Day to team up with programmers and designers who can come up with new ways of making access easier and quicker.Sandwell borough archivist Sarah Chubb said: "The Hack Day is being held this Saturday (April16) at The Public in West Bromwich, from 10am, and we are hoping that there will be a really good turn out."Project manager Linda Ellis said: "We are really excited about working with local web enthusiasts and are looking forward to hearing their ideas of how we can work together to make our data more accessible, interesting and useful."We hope that developers who are interested in using our data will come along to our Museums Hack Day."With a number of digital creatives already signed up for the event and an inspiring venue, this promises to be a fun, creative and productive day."Over the last 12 months museums and archive services in the Black Country have been working together to make its collections information available online via the Black Country History website.Hack Days are seen as exciting, collaborative events that bring people, data and ideas together to create new things and make connections.The recent Culture Hack Day held at the Royal Opera House in London, attracted 69 developers and saw some fascinating applications being built.http://www.sandwell.gov.uk/news/article/877/help_needed_to_make_historic_records_more_accessible(ML)