BBC NI producer Claire Burgoyne explains why the infamous De Lorean car is one of the exhibits chosen from the province for a new digital museum launched today

The keys to Colditz Castle, a mortar from the Siege of Derry and a copy of the Good Friday Agreement are among 25 objects chosen to represent Northern Ireland in what could prove to be the world's biggest digital museum. A History of the World is a unique partnership between the BBC and museums across Great Britain and Northern Ireland launching today.

It uses objects with both local and global resonances to tell a history of the world and, in many instances, personal recollections of events that helped shape our world.

How do you tell a history of Northern Ireland and its place in the world using objects? That’s the challenge I faced in July 2009.

The British Museum and the BBC were coming together, for the first time in a partnership, to launch A History of the World.

At the centre of the project is a website — bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld — to which objects are added and this is where the team from Belfast came in.

Our task was to link up museums and BBC stations across Great Britain and Northern Ireland, to identify objects to populate the website for its launch.

Since the summer every BBC radio station across the UK has ‘buddied up’ with partner museums to select objects to represent their area for today’s launch of A History of the World.

It’s been quite an adventure. Museums and BBC teams were quick to sign up. Here in Northern Ireland we’ve partnered with National Museums Northern Ireland, Armagh Public Library, Ballymoney Museum and Sentry Hill Historic House in Newtownabbey to name a few.

So how to decide which objects to put on the website for its launch? It wasn’t easy as every museum across the UK had its own favourites. There was criteria laid out for selection — the objects must be man-made, have a local and a global connection and have a good story attached to them.

This seemed quite straight forward at first, until that is the object suggestions started to flood in. Conversations over the past few months have included ‘Is a dodo man-made if it has wooden feet?’ (Answer: Yes) and ‘Is Alfred the Gorilla — much loved inhabitant of Bristol and now stuffed and mounted in the city’s main museum — really an object? (Answer: Yes).

Here in Northern Ireland, we’ve been delighted at the range of material to surface and the panel of museum experts who had to agree on the first 25 objects from here to go on the website faced quite a challenge.

For instance, how many people knew that the keys to Colditz Castle were now on display in one of our museums? The keys were grabbed by a freed officer after he was liberated by the Americans towards the end of the Second World War. This fascinating object can now be seen in a display at the Somme Heritage Centre, between Bangor and Newtownards.

Curators have thrown open their doors to us. In Derry, representatives from all the city’s museums turned out to give us guided tours of their collections, including the museum in St Columb’s Cathedral, whose exhibits include a Siege of Derry mortar to which was attached the immortal words “No Surrender”.

All of these objects meet the project's criteria of having local significance and worldwide resonance but meeting that objective while telling the story of the Troubles, proved to be a daunting task for the local museum experts.

Their solution was practical and also thought-provoking. A Civil Rights banner from The Museum of Free Derry is used to represent the period considered to be the beginning of the Troubles.

Civil Rights marchers were not alone in their form of protest. Their demands for change had echoes of other marches taking place in other parts of the world at the time, such as students in France and anti-war protests.

More than 3,000 people died in the Troubles. Only one book tells each of their stories and Lost Lives has been selected by the museum experts as a chronicle of the tragedies. For the next year, as part of the BBC project, a copy of Lost Lives will be placed on a plinth in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast for the public to view.

So, how to find an object representing an end of the Troubles?

How about a copy of the Good Friday/Belfast/Stormont agreement that although supported by over two-thirds of the people on the island of Ireland has at least three names — because, ironically, while consensus was achieved on an amazing range of very contentious issues, it was never achieved on what it should be called! Whatever its title, the Agreement, on display in Bagenal's Castle in Newry, is now used as a rough template in many peace processes across the world.

All of these objects and hundreds more are displayed on the website A History of the World bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld and you can play your part too.

Do you have an object that tells a local and a global story?

Perhaps you have a fragment from the Berlin Wall or a set of Russian dolls brought back from the former Soviet Union?

Your object doesn’t need to be beautiful or striking. We’ve been amazed by the variety of objects which museums have chosen to put on the website for its launch.

For example, the Manx Museum on the Isle of Man has selected an object housed in a very humble wooden crate but the contents reveal a fascinating story. Inside are two sets of gramophone records holding over five hours of rare recordings of the voices of some of the last native Manx speakers.

The recordings were instigated by An Taoiseach Eamon De Valera who visited the Isle of Man in 1947. De Valera became so concerned at the vulnerability of Manx Gaelic that he arranged for an RTE lorry and recording crew to be sent to the Isle of Man to capture the last vestiges of this endangered language. The crew travelled on the weekly cattle boat to the Island but the journey was worthwhile and today the recordings are a cherished part of Manx history.

During the coming weeks, BBC Northern Ireland will be promoting the project, bringing listeners and viewers to the website.

In February, Gerry Anderson and his BBC Radio Foyle/Radio Ulster listeners will board a special bus taking them from Cookstown to the Ulster Museum collecting objects along the way. In addition, 25 short films are in production featuring Northern Ireland’s first selection of objects.

Of all the objects launching A History of the World in Northern Ireland my personal favourite has to be the De Lorean car, made in Belfast which then went on to be known by millions around the world in the classic 80s film Back to the Future.

So whether it’s a letter from America extolling the virtues of the New World, a piece of linen manufactured in Belfast for export round the world in the 1900s, or perhaps you’re new to these shores and have brought with you a reminder of your old home, A History of the World would like to hear from you.

For your chance to make history and add an object, go to www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld