Things are changing at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Archive and sometimes, they change fast!
Introducing not one but two new faces from the archive team, meet Elliot, our new Archive Assistant, who started in August; and Anna who has been volunteering for us since July.
Elliot joins us as part of a career in archives, records management, and libraries. His experience has focused primarily on cataloguing modern archives relating to institutions and individuals, covering a wide range of subjects, such as political history, the history of science, modern literature, church history, and a charity. He has been everywhere that matters in terms of exciting and innovative work in archives and libraries, from the British Library to the Wellcome Trust, with a detour via Lambeth Palace Library and the University of Roehampton. Elliot says: “I look forward to contributing to the º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Archive at an important stage in its history and development.”
Anna graduated in English Literature and Philosophy in 2017 but was taken away from the warm fold of Humanities by life expectations. We managed to lure her in with the promise of working “with the real stuff”, or at least with material as interesting as her other experiences with Special Collections and private archives. This archivist is not entirely sure that LUA has delivered on that account, but we welcome Anna’s enthusiasm and steadiness, and hope that she continues in the field and into a Master’s in Archives and Records Management. Anna says: “This experience has confirmed a passion that I have for this subject and my desire to pursue it in whatever form that may be.”
Now, for the actual work…
Elliot will work on the archives catalogue, retro converting over 600 finding aids in Word format to the international standards of archival description, in an online AtoM database. Work has already started and some of you may have seen the occasional fonds or item, now fully remotely available. A word of warning however: not everything will ever be digitised, and our database is essentially an online catalogue. Users will still have to come and visit us for most fonds and collections. On occasion, we will have some surrogates remotely accessible, directly from the Atom entry, but more on that later.
Anna is currently working on transcribing staff lists from the º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ colleges and the University calendars, which date back to 1919, all the way to the 2000s! For some unfathomable reason, the calendars – one of our foremost collections, heavily consulted and rich with information about people, events and practices – have not yet been digitised. Neither were our publications, but more on that later… We are scanning staff lists from the calendars and extracting valuable information about when people started with us, who was teaching what or in the support teams, how long they stayed, etc. This also enables us to understand structural changes to University schools and departments, patterns of change and growth, essentially charting our history and trajectory through the eyes of the people that took us where we are now. It is essential work that allows us to support academic research, as well as community enquiries around genealogy, family history, etc.
Going back, to our historical publications, over the summer, we tried for grant funding to digitise The Limit and Beyond the Limit, our longest-spanning and most consulted historical material. And probably, a rare finding for any researcher, as the only other whole set is at º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ Public Library. These publications are full of stories, people’s experiences and pictures, as well as wonderful factual information that has been leveraged and interpreted by many local historians and scholars in other disciplines. Unfortunately, we did not get the funding this time, but we are still planning on scanning these publications, one by one and in-house. You can already see the pilot for one of the ways we will make them available online.
Yes, The Limit and Beyond the Limit will also be described and accessed through AtoM, but not before the º¬Ðß²ÝÊÓƵ College fonds is fully retro converted. See? This is what we are dealing with here… Bit by bit, we are bringing together all archival functions and ensuring our users find what they are looking for, know where to find them, and access them in a way that works for both them and the materials themselves.
An instance of that is the stained glass panels collection. Dotted around campus and often commented on, the more than 100 panel set is technically on private land, and in some cases in meeting rooms, highly prized by our staff. By canvassing the entire campus and taking good quality photographs, we have been able to map the entire collection and arrange them in a way that reproduces their physical setting. Online users can now see these surrogates on AtoM, and we’re hoping to start an interpretation project with History or Visual Archives Management students very soon. We hope to decipher coats of arms, stylistic choices, identify flora and fauna, as well as provide some explanation for certain depictions that we are uncomfortable with today.
As we get more people involved with the University Archive, we will be able to run more projects like these, with the objective to get more historical contents available to our communities of students, university staff and alumni, as well as anyone with a connection to the University.
We have so many interesting records and stories to share, why not come in and see for yourself! More information is available on the LUA webpage.
Image one: one of the staircases in the Rutland Building, circa 1932, ©LU.
Image two: cover of The Limit, Christmas 1918, ©LU.
Image three: bay window in the Rutland Building, circa 1932, ©LU.
