Every year, councils across the country use a social media campaign to promote how they operate, and all the hundreds of fantastic things that go on on a daily basis. This campaign is called ‘Our Day‘ and this year it has fallen on Tuesday 19 November 2019. As part of this campaign, this blog aims to give you a snapshot of what has been happening on a ‘typical’ Tuesday at Dorset History Centre!
In the Repository
DHC has been closed to the public since Monday 4th November, so that we can undertake some long-overdue work in our repository. This work has involved emptying and dismantling obsolete shelving and replacing it with more functional roller-racking. This new racking will hopefully allow us to store more large and oversize material in a better way.
Today the workmen have been working hard to get the shelving in place. Having laid the tracks last week, today they have been able to begin putting the new racking in place.
Due to the nature of our collections, and where access can be given to the building, we have to have a member of staff supervising the repository at all times to ensure that there is no damage done to any documents! It’s a cold job sat in a repository, so the staff wrap up warm, and take something to do to keep them busy whilst they are on-duty!
Next week we will be re-locating all the material into the new and improved shelves, so there may continue to be some disruption to public services, but we shall do our best to minimise disruption as far as we can.
Public Services
On a normal Tuesday we are open to the public, so you can access records, look at Ancestry, or consult some of our local studies books. This year is slightly different.
Our ongoing building works mean that our main search-room was closed (and will be until Friday 22nd November), but that doesn’t mean the work has stopped! During the course of the day you still will find any one of our Public Services team at our enquiry desk, answering questions from visitors or taking telephone calls. You will also find someone invigilating our Family History room, where people have come in to look at records on a PC on microfilm. There are still staff answering emails as well, so if you have a query, please email us: archives@dorsetcouncil.gov.uk.
Today there have been various people looking at parish collections, and reading some of books. One gentleman was looking at a copy of Hutchins (third edition) which is on our open access shelves to try to find more about his village.
There was also another couple who were looking for details of their great-grandmother. We showed them the parish collections via Ancestry, and they were delighted to find details of both her marriage and her baptism.
We have had someone in looking at the Lester and Garland families material (which we hold some of on microfilm); and finally, we had someone looking for a newspaper article about their father from the 1960s. Unfortunately, any report that may have existed was not present in the papers and on the dates he looked at via microfilm on this occasion, but he has promised to come back to hunt some more!
Whilst this has been happening, our Public Services Archivist has spent his day looking at proposed alterations to the public spaces, and working on finishing some of the Bankes project cataloguing work.
Collections Care
With public orders temporarily halted due to our building work, our Reprographics Officer has been spending the time working on private orders. Today she was working on material for Dorset County Museum so that it can be be used when the Museum reopens next year.
Our Collections Archivist is also using the closure period to ‘catch-up’ with some other things. Today he was accessioning material relating to the WI, as well as some parish collections.
With the works that are happening, our Conservator has been spending a lot of her time supervising the workmen, ensuring that the project is happening smoothly and correctly. Coming in at 8am this morning to let the workmen in, it has been a long day! In between supervising the workmen, she spent time today advising our Reprographics Officer on the handling and imaging of a large map, as well as discussing the ongoing preservation of various photographic negatives with our Frink Archivist.
The Archivist’s Office
The Archivist’s Office is always a hive of activity. In it, you will typically find our Community Engagement Officer liaising with community groups about their various different projects. This morning she attended a meeting relating to Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 as plans begin to be put in place.
We also have our two Project Archivists and they were busy today working away at cataloguing important collections. Whilst the Herrison Project has been ongoing for a few months now, our Dame Elisabeth Frink Project Archivist is just getting into the groove with his work, having only begun in mid-October. Today on their radar have been various order papers from Herrison; and one of the many boxes of photographs and negatives relating to Frink. You will soon be able to see the results of their work when it is added into our online catalogue.
Whilst all of that was happening, our Senior Service Support Officer was also helping out the workmen in the repository, as well as liaising with different council departments about the building’s ongoing maintenance.
Unfortunately, our Archivist who focuses on digital media doesn’t work on a Tuesday, so she hasn’t been in today, but on her radar for tomorrow is the accessioning of photographs we have recently received, as well as working with Preservica to add digital records into the system.
And finally, there is the Service Manager for Archives and the Principal Archivist who have had busy days! Whilst the Service Manager has had meetings relating to the wider publicity of the service in Dorchester, and about the Frink project; the Principal Archivist has had various one-on-one meetings with team members, as well as doing a spot of repository supervision.
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This has been a very brief snapshot of a working day at Dorset History Centre. If you would like to know more about what we do, our blog is full of content relating to how we work, and the items we hold.
Or feel free to get in touch with us:
Tel: 01305 250550
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Dorset History Centre will re-open after the building works on Tuesday 26th November, and our normal opening hours will be back in operation from this date.