WILTSHIRE Heritage Museum has produced a DVD to show visitors what goes on behind the scenes there.

The DVD looks at the day to day workings of the Devizes-based museum and gives a glimpse of parts of collections never seen before.

The DVD is installed on a touch screen monitor in the museum where visitors can view it and it is for sale from the museum shop priced at £9.

Julian Richards, presenter of TV's Meet the Ancestors, is the presenter of the DVD and he launched it at the museum on Friday.

Mr Richards is a keen supporter of the museum and is a member of the society that runs it.

The DVD is split into four sections of about four minutes.

One part reveals the extent of the reserve collections consisting of thousands of items stored in the museum's cellars.

Another part shows the work of the museum's education officer and shows a workshop where a group of children are exploring the history of writing.

Also featured is the work of expert conservators who explain how they saved some of the most precious items in the museum's collections from crumbling to dust, including Bronze Age pottery vessels from Avebury.

Finally, the DVD shows the work of the museum's archaeological field group.

The DVD was produced in partnership with Wiltshire College. The interactive media centre at Chippenham made the DVD using staff and a production crew of HND students.

The students filmed and edited the production and the costs of the project were shared between the collage and the museum.

The creation of the DVD is part of a larger project to document all collections at the museum. Its collections are designated as being of outstanding national importance under a scheme managed by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, which gave a grant for the DVD.

Gina Lane, director of collections, archives, workforce and standards at the MLA, said: "The collections at the museum have been designated as being of outstanding national importance. The DVD will enable even greater access to these collections."