We have launched a readers' survey to find out how to make the best use of our huge picture database dating back to the 19th century.

The Express & Star is bidding for Heritage Lottery funding to put its entire photographic archive, which goes back to Victorian times, onto a website which would be free to view.

To aid this process, we are asking readers for their views on what benefits such a service would bring, and how they would be likely to use it. The survey, on the web page www.expressandstar.com/bid-survey, should take no more than a few minutes to fill in and will be invaluable in helping us.

If the bid were successful, it would make thousands of evocative images from the last 139 years available to the general public – ranging from people at work in long-gone factories to visits from luminaries such as King George VI and Winston Churchill.

Express & Star brand and communications manager Chris Leggett said: "Through this survey, the bid steering group wants to compile as much information as possible on how potential end users will expect to access this unrivalled collection.

Express & Star readers are being asked to get behind the bid to have our photographic archive made available on the internet. To lend your support, write to Chris Leggett, Brand and Communications Manager, Express & Star, 51-53 Queen Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1ES, or email Chris.Leggett@Expressandstar.co.uk

Students say online plan is top class

College students have given a firm thumbs up to the Express & Star's plans to put its photographic collection on the internet during a visit to the newspaper.

A group of photography students from Dudley College, led by lecturer Phil Brooks, visited the newspaper's head office in Wolverhampton this week to see the photographic archive first hand.

Mr Brooks said the visit was of great benefit to the students, who were studying for an advanced diploma in photography, but said that having the pictures readily available on the internet would allow students to take advantage of the archive far more often.

"The visit was of massive benefit and interest to the students, looking at earlier styles of photography, and generated a lot of discussion on the way back. The idea that there are a nearly a million photographs ready to be scanned is in itself fascinating, and the stories about Wolverhampton Wanderers supporters waiting outside the Express & Star offices in 1908 to get the FA Cup Final score was amazing."

Tia Lloyd, aged 17, from Sedgley, said: "I could have spent hours in there."