Building work started

Hurrah!  Works to create the Heritage Hub facilities at our Alvin Street premises in Gloucester are now underway, ably led by Paul Lander, the Site Manager employed by our builder, Lakehouse, to oversee things.

Heather Forbes, Head of Archives and Paul Lander, Site Manager for Lakehouse

Paul and his team have until the end of this year to complete the planned works, which will be done in two phases.  All being well, we should have the new Archives research room and Gloucestershire Family History Centre facilities up and running by the summer.  Meanwhile, we’re doing our best to offer a service that’s pretty much ‘business as usual’ for everyone that wants to use the documents in our collections. So we’re running a temporary research room in the Frith Centre, which is next to our main building – it’s a bit smaller than we’re used to but we can assure you of the same warm welcome!  

If you'd like to see how the building works are going, click on the 'Blogging a Building' link in the 'In this section' box at the far right of this page. 

 

Thank you to the Friends of Gloucestershire Archives

Making Gloucestershire Heritage Hub a reality

We are very grateful to the many organisations and individuals that have supported the 'For the Record' project that's allowing us to set up Gloucestershire Heritage Hub.  Our Head of Archives, Heather Forbes would like to acknowledge them in turn, beginning in this issue with a special thank you to the Friends of Gloucestershire Archives who have been journeying with us from the onset.

Heather Forbes, Head of Archives

 

Thank you, 'Friends', for your support

Our new Community Heritage Development Officer, Sally Middleton shared a quote that struck a chord with us all the other day: ‘Volunteers are unpaid, not because they are worthless, but because they are priceless’ (from The National Council for Voluntary Organisations’ conference, 2016).  And with the priceless role of volunteers very much in mind, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Friends of Gloucestershire Archives for their key role in supporting the ‘For the Record’ project.  Here are some examples:

Fundraising

The Friends kicked off their major fundraising efforts, initially needed to secure match funding for the crucial stage one bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2014, with a sponsored marathon.  Since then the Friends Fundraising Committee has worked really hard, submitting a variety of funding bids and generating income to make the project plans a reality.   The building work is now fully funded so we’re currently working with them to raise monies for the furniture and fit-out, and for the activities to be delivered at the Hub once the new facilities are up and running.  I’m particularly grateful to fundraising committee members Stephen Haygarth, Clive Andrews and James Hodsdon, the OS map group, and all Friends who have supported the project with individual donations and/or supporting Friends’ events.

Developing Gloucestershire Heritage Hub

The Friends also play an important role on the 'For the Record' Stakeholders Advisory Board, which has been meeting every couple of months since 2014.  Represented by the Chair of the Friends, initially Stephen Haygarth and now Clive Andrews, they've made valuable contributions to discussions around plans to develop the emerging Gloucestershire Heritage Hub community, including decisions about the Hub building, branding and website, and this e-newsletter.  Along with other board members, they play a vital role in ensuring the project provides maximum benefit to our partners and those wishing to use archives. 

Friends are also helping us to make the right decisions about the new Heritage Hub facilities.  Most recently, we were very glad to have volunteer 'buddies' Liz Jack and Maureen Anderson with us when we were testing sound-insulated seating for people accessing Audio-Visual records or holding one to one conversations in busy parts of the Hub.  You can read more about this at https://gloucestershirearchives.wordpress.com/2017/03/03/blogging-a-building-2/  And, as we move forward with the Hub fit out, we're grateful to have the Friends on board with plans to develop displays that will enhance the visitor experience.  These include a wall mural to acknowledge the financial contributions that have helped to make the Hub a reality, the future donations that will help us to keep on developing it, and the key role of the Friends in making all of this possible.   

Many, many thanks to all our Friends!

Blogging a Building

 

Access & Learning Leader, Jill Shonk is writing a weekly blog about works that are happening to create the new Heritage Hub at the Archives' Alvin Street premises.  You can catch up with her 'Blogging a Building' diary entries via the links on the Gloucestershire Archives' Blog Homepage at: https://gloucestershirearchives.wordpress.com/.  And you can stay up to date with future entries by becoming a Gloucestershire Archives blog 'follower'.  You'll find the 'sign up' box if you scroll down the menu on the right hand side of the blog Homepage, as shown below: 

If you decide to follow us your information will be held securely and you can unsubscribe at any point.

Keeping Digital Archives Safe

Our e-preservation experts are developing standards and procedures to process digital material effectively and keep it secure and accessible into the future. They’ll be sharing this as part of the Gloucestershire Heritage Hub training programme, which will be offered at the new Heritage Hub venue and via the Heritage Hub website.

 

Solving the digital dilemma

Have you ever lost a digital document or wondered what to do with your ever-expanding array of digital photos?  If so, you're not alone!  But, rest assured, we're on the case at Gloucestershire Archives as digital records are just as important as traditional paper-based records.  Here's what we're doing to tackle the technical challenges they present and ensure the digital records in our collections are safe - also our plans to help others, like you, do the same.

As part of the 'For the Record' project, and using Heritage Lottery funding, we’ve been able to employ an archivist experienced in e-preservation, Claire Collins to lead on our digital preservation provision.  She has been working with our Heritage Lottery funded Skills for Future trainee, Ros Farr and four volunteers, including two students recruited from Gloucestershire University’s Degree Plus placement scheme.  And they’ve been using a software toolkit (‘SCAT’) to process digital records donated to Gloucestershire Archives. The toolkit, based on a low cost approach using open-source software, has been developed for us by one of our longstanding volunteers, Dr Viv Cothey, a nationally recognised expert in the field of e-preservation.  It allows us to create, store and access ‘packages’ of data safely over time – replicating, in a virtual world, much of what we do to look after our traditional collections.

We’ve also joined a network of English public archives services that are working in partnership with The National Archives on a six month project called Archives First. The project aims to ensure important records can be preserved and accessed beyond the life of a particular software system (15 years is a long time in this respect!) and some of the activity involves liaising with suppliers of major software systems used by local government. 

All of this is helping us shape the advice and support we're going to offer to local people.  We’ll be doing this through online and onsite training once the new Gloucestershire Heritage Hub website and venue are up and running.

Heritage Hub Collections Care training at Dr Jenner’s House

On 2 March this year, Gloucestershire Archives Collections Care team (Ann Attwood & Rachel Wales) went to Dr Jenner's House, Museum and Garden to train volunteers in Collections Care.   The Jenner Trust is an independent charity which cares for The Chantry, where Dr Edward Jenner practised as a country doctor, and celebrates his life, work and achievements as the father of vaccination and the science of immunology.

The Trust contacted us in December to ask if Gloucestershire Archives could provide collections care training for five of their archive volunteers. Three or four of the volunteers were relatively new and hadn’t had any formal training before.  Much of their work is basic collections care, packing, handling and cleaning. 

As we are in the process of developing the modules for our Heritage Hub ‘Keeping’ training, which provides support for organisations preserving documentary history in Gloucestershire, we were glad to work with the Jenner Trust to provide a training event that would be useful for their volunteers, and potentially others too.  They were also happy to act as a ‘critical friend’, and to give us plenty of feedback to help us develop future training modules.

By the end of the morning volunteers could:

• Understand the importance of collections care
• Identify and manage risks to their collection
• Understand and source archival materials
• Appreciate a range of options for protecting collections
• Use and handle collections in a safe way
• Practice improved basic craft skills
• Use simple protective enclosures
• Link collections care activity to a helpful framework
• Prioritise improvements
• Be aware of other trusted sources of collections care help and advice
• And begin their own journey – by taking away an action plan.

Our aim is to establish and build relationships with people and organisations keeping and caring for archive collections in Gloucestershire by offering Collections Care ‘pick & mix’ training modules linked to heritage sector benchmarks in collection care, with follow-on support as required (charges may apply).

Other modules in development are:

• 'House-keeping' including cleaning, pest control, environmental control and mould prevention
• 'Safe Use' including preparation for display and for digitisation
• 'Specialist' such as caring for photographs, finding and working with a conservator, and salvage of water damaged items.

Training being delivered to The Jenner Trust volunteers.

Rachel shows volunteers how to use a bone folder to get the perfect fold!

 

Eating an elephant…

We have lots of information on our website to help people find, use and understand the archive and local study collections we look after.   As part of our preparations to become the Heritage Hub, we are looking at these resources with a fresh eye to make sure they are accessible, relevant and up to date.  It’s a big task and so we’re following the well - known advice on how to eat an elephant,  and  tackling it bit by bit!  We started  off with our online parish register guide as the website stats tell us that this is one of our most popular downloads. The majority of parish registers which we hold can now be viewed and searched on Ancestry’s website so we’ve updated the guide -and the online catalogue- to reflect this.   We’ve also made sure our extensive series (64 in all!) of research “mini guides” are up to date and take account of our recent digitisation partnerships with Ancestry and Know Your Place.  These short but informative little guides cover key topics and types of documents.  They include useful tips on how to find specific collections in the online catalogue and are well worth checking out if you haven’t already seen them.   Research guides - Gloucestershire Archives

 

The Research Mini Guides window.