In January 2024, for the first time ever, Dorset History Centre has held a two-week closure period. Closure periods are not uncommon in the archive world, and provide an opportunity for staff and volunteers to spend some dedicated time working on collections, trying to solve known problems, or simply cataloguing newly acquired archives.
For ourselves here at DHC there were three main objectives for this period, firstly to begin an audit of our strong-rooms; secondly to begin to sort, organise and consolidate our many thousands of Ordnance Survey maps; and thirdly to accession as much as possible of the backlog of material that has been built-up over many years.
The Strong-room audit
The strong-room audit is akin to painting the Forth Bridge in its size and the time it will take to fully do. This project, which involves opening every box we have, checking its contents align with what we think should be present, assessing the condition of the documents, and making sure that all of our finding-aids are correct is a slow, but very important job.
During the course of the two weeks we found examples of material being incorrectly boxed, or boxes being incorrectly numbered. These were things we were able to solve as we went along. We also found many documents with conservation issues and have recorded these for our Conservator to assess in the future.
In two weeks we were able to fully audit 2,340 boxes, which was a huge effort from the team. To put the size of this task into context however, we estimate that we have around 55,000 boxes, meaning that a full audit will take many years to do!
The Ordnance Survey maps
The Ordnance Survey maps were the second major strand of our work. This involved another audit, of our publicly accessible maps in the searchroom.
Simultaneously we were also sorting and organising large piles of maps that had been acquired over a long period of time. These had to be sorted into series (depending on the scale of the maps), and then into geographical areas. The sorted maps could then be compared to those in the searchroom and gaps could be filled in where necessary.
Again, this is a large, complicated task which we knew would never be completed in two weeks, but we were able to do significant work on the problem in the period. We estimate that over 2,000 maps have been processed during the two weeks, and space in our strong-rooms has been created through the identification of duplicate material we do not need to keep.
Accessioning
Members of staff have also been working to reduce the large backlog of accessions which have come into us over many years. Accessions can vary in size, ranging anywhere from one document up to (or beyond) 100 boxes.
The nature of the day-to-day work at DHC means that it is impossible to stay on-top of accessioning given the volumes of material which comes into us either from members of the public, organisations, or purchases made at auction. Our holding room for new accessions is always full with material awaiting processing, and these two weeks have provided us an opportunity to make a large dent in this backlog.
This has involved adding metadata to our database, undertaking box-listing where necessary, or in some cases simply undertaking the actual cataloguing of small collections. Ordinarily, these processes take time, so this dedicated two week period has allowed us to accession over 60 accessions, and properly catalogue nearly 500 records.
Other things we did
Beyond these three major tasks, we also undertook other smaller jobs as well, including the consolidation of our display materials…
…the weeding of our magazine stock…
…the appraisal of our historic paper catalogues and other files…
As well as the addition of over 2,000 digital files into our digital preservation system Preservica!
Volunteers
At this point, it would be remiss of us to fail to observe the contributions of our volunteers. None of the work we have done in the two weeks would have been possible without their help. Between them, they contributed over 200 hours of time to help us achieve all that we did, and we are enormously grateful to them for their efforts and their time.
What’s next?
We have learnt a lot from these last two weeks about how to structure our workloads, what is (or isn’t) achievable in the time period, what other things we still need to do in the future; and how many biscuits and cups of tea are needed to keep the team going throughout the period!
It is worth re-emphasising the point made at the start – this was the first time we had done anything like this, so there was an element of ‘learning lessons for next time’. The staff at DHC are hopeful that Collections Weeks will become an annual event so that we can tackle some of the bigger things we ordinarily wouldn’t have the time (or space) to do. Of course, we will keep everyone informed about our future plans!
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Edit (Feb 2024)
We have been asked to supply a list of the newly added items or collections following the work we did during these two weeks. This list is below:
| D-3356 | MILESTONES SURVEY | 1 file and 1 CD | 1996-2016 |
| D-3357 | Dorset Secular and Ecclesiastical Buildings | 1 vol | 1995-2010 |
| D-3358 | Industrial Engineering Works | 5 items | 1905-1993 |
| D-3359 | WEYMOUTH ANZACs | c.1916-2016 | |
| D-3360 | Dorset County Farms – Fontmell Estate | 1974-1994 | |
| D-3361 | Piddletrenthide Memorial Hall | 1 file | 2005-2016 |
| D-3363 | Wessex Wanderers | 2 files | 1995-2019 |
| D-3364 | WEST DORSET RAMBLERS | 1993-2002 | |
| D-3365 | George Family of Corfe Mullen | 1890s-early 20th Century | |
| D-3366 | Act for vesting in Trustees and their Heirs, certain Estates at Mappowder and Plush | 1797 | |
| D-3367 | The Weymouth Consumers Gas Company | 1 Vol | 1933 |
| D-3368 | Swanage Museum | 5 Vols | 1851-1927 |
| D-3369 | Dorchester Radio Station | 1947-1979 | |
| D-3370 | Harold Wilson Evacuee Letters | 1 file | May-42 |
| D-3371 | Old Hall, 101 Newland, Sherborne | 2 boxes | |
| D-3372 | SOLICITOR’S DEEDS | 1850-1905 | |
| D-PDS | PORTER DODSON, SOLICITORS | ||
| D-PIL | PILSDON COMMUNITY | 1958- | |
| D-RAC/UA | UNCATALOGUED ACCESSIONS | ||
| NB-21 | Canford Heath Baptist Church | 2 vols | 1997-2022 |
| PC-ABB | ABBOTSBURY PARISH COUNCIL | 1894-1973 | |
| PC-CHB | CHESIL BANK PARISH COUNCIL | 1970-2010 | |
| PC-MAH | Manston and Hammoon Parish Council | 1956-2018 | |
| PC-TRP/UA | UNCATALOGUED ACCESSIONS | ||
| S-375 | St Osmund’s CE Middle School | 1877-1998 | |
| W-214 | WEST PARLEY WOMEN’S INSTITUTE | 1938-2019 | |
| W-215 | BRIDPORT CENTRAL WOMEN’S INSTITUTE | 5 boxes | 1917-2019 |
| W-216 | EAST BURTON WOMEN’S INSTITUTE | 1 box | 1951-2013 |
| W-217 | West Parley Women’s Institute | 1 box | 1926-2017 |
| W-218 | ST LEONARDS & DISTRICT WOMEN’S INSTITUTE | 1 bdl | 1931-1962 |
| W-219 | East Stour & West Stour Women’s Institute | 2 boxes | 1948-2018 |
| W-220 | Shaftesbury Morning Women’s Institute | 1 box | 1992-2018 |
| W-221 | Tuckton & Southbourne Women’s Institute | 1 box | 1985-2018 |
| W-222 | Golden Cap Women’s Institute | 5 vols | 1955-2001 |
Well done, everyone! A very good reason to shut up shop for 2 weeks … and next year(s) as well!
Congratulations from Australia, what a great achievement in such a short space of time. I hope it becomes an annual event as so much material can be assessed and/or catalogued during these two weeks. You have all done a magnificent job. Well done.
Congratulations to you all. I shall look out for calls for help next year (or whenever you have a closure for this important ‘catch up’)
Re the boxes and documents you accessioned and catalogued during the closure. Do you have a list of them? I’m thinking it would be useful to see some headings which might prompt a searcher with a range of interests (and having made extensive searches before the latest items have been added) to then go to the online catalogue for detailed records.
Many thanks
Hi Paul – this is a good idea. We will add a list of the newly added collections at the end of the post. Thanks for the suggestion!
How do you apply to volunteer in the Dorset Archives? I did some photo digitising in the Bridport Centre several years ago but it has now moved, possibly closed? I would be happy to tackle whatever needs doing in Bridport & I’d very much enjoy it. I’ve been a carer at home for some years but feel the need to do something useful outside the home I would also enjoy. Bridport & surrounding area is my specialist subject of sorts…. I’ve been helping Bridport parish opc’s to get 1891 census up for free. I also have a degree in archaeology which I never really used employment wise but I’m open to anything really.
Hi Amanda – thanks for getting in touch. Our volunteer opportunities are listed on our website: https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/libraries-history-culture/dorset-history-centre/get-involved/volunteer. We are currently only looking for a Support Volunteer as we are maximum capacity for our other positions. Thank-you for your interest.