Following the success of our previous Collections Fortnight, held in January 2024, staff at Dorset History Centre recognised that there is an ongoing need to spend two weeks each year working on many behind-the-scenes things that we cannot otherwise do when we are open to the public. We also learned that January is not an ideal time to undertake this sort of work, as it leads directly into one of our busiest times of the year in the spring, and the Public Services team spent a long time playing catch-up earlier in 2024.
We therefore took the decision to hold our next Collections Fortnight in late November/early December 2024 – traditionally one of our quietest periods of the year – and we plan to hold them annually around this date going forward.
The two weeks we have been shut on this occasion have seen us do an awful lot behind the scenes…
The Sorting Room
The Sorting Room is the room where we receive accessions into the building, checking them over for any nasty creepy-crawlies or any sorts of mould, before they are then accessioned and moved into our main repositories. However, over many years, the room had become something of a dumping ground for all sorts of things, and wasn’t really working as originally intended. In addition, various leaks over the years had damaged ceiling tiles and posed some risk to documents.
During this fortnight we have addressed these problems. We initially had to empty the room, taking out all of the accessions held within it and re-boxing them into archival boxes…
With a large hand from some of our volunteers, this created us a pile of 195 boxes of accessions awaiting the attention of an Archivist. These will be accessioned, and catalogued, in due course.
Whilst the room was empty, we took the time to rearrange things, and repaired the ceiling tiles too…
We then thoroughly cleaned the room before we returned the boxes awaiting accessioning back into the space, in an easy-to-find order, ready for an Archivist to come and work on.
Simultaneously, we also removed all of the repackaging material that was in there, and undertook a full audit of what we had…
Once we had audited this material, we also returned that to the space, arranging it in a much neater and easier to access manner.
D-BLX and D-SHA
Other than the sorting room, our next priority was to begin sorting, repackaging and organising two collections we hold which have caused us some problems. D-BLX (Bloxworth Estate) and D-SHA (Sherborne Almshouse) are two collections which were not stored particularly suitably, and have some issues with the catalogue which causes problems for staff and customers alike. Our goal during these two weeks was to sort out some of these problems.
As it turned out, D-BLX was relatively simple to audit, repackage and organise, and we finished this within three days.
D-SHA however, caused us many more problems. The collection is something of a hybrid of cataloguing, with different reference numbers being used in different places, poorly packaged documents, and some missing material.
The work we undertook during these two weeks involved opening up bundles, flattening material where possible, and then repackaging and re-numbering the material.
This was a mammoth task that, given the size of the collection and the scale of the problem, we were never going to finish in two weeks. With the aid of our volunteers, we have made some significant inroads into the collection however, and will continue working on this collection to make it more accessible for customers.
Auditing Work
In January we had started auditing our repository spaces, something which akin to painting the Forth Bridge! This time around we have continued where we left off in January. This process involves opening and checking every box in the repository, identifying where items might be missing, or incorrectly boxed; as well as checking the conservation status of records for a fuller assessment later.
Including the boxes that were audited as part of the work on D-BLX and D-SHA, we have audited over 1,500 boxes in these two weeks, and found some items that were thought to be missing. For a little bit of context, this is just less than 3% of our collections – so clearly it’s a mammoth job!
Along the way, we did find some fun, curious or interesting documents, which made things a little more fun…
We also found some conservation nightmares…
The Hardy Project
During the two weeks, we have also utilised some of our volunteers to give Project Archivist Ruth a helping hand on some of the more time-consuming parts of the Hardy Collection. Their work will directly help Ruth to catalogue this collection so that it can be accessed by the public in the future.
Accessioning
The fortnight also allowed us to catch-up with some of the accessioning we need to do. An accession is a deposit or donation before it gets catalogued. During the accessioning process we add the details of the material into our catalogue system, including information about where the deposit/donation has come from, as well as some basic information about what is included in the material.
This basic information means that the material can be useable by staff or customers even if it is uncatalogued. Accessioning is also the time we can weed the collection, removing the material should be deem it not suitable for permanent preservation.
Across the fortnight we have added over 50 accessions of material into our system. At the bottom of this post is a list of some of the accessions we have added.
Volunteers
We have mentioned our volunteers throughout this post, and none of the work we have done in these two weeks would have been achieved without their efforts. We are enormously grateful to them for giving up their time and energy to help us with our work.
We also took one lesson forward from January – the need for suitable refreshments to keep everyone going!
Accessions added
Please note that some of these collections may not be available for public viewing, depending on GDPR or conservation status.
| Accession number | Title | Date(s) | Extent |
| 12048 | Portland Deeds | c1782-1891 | 1 bdl |
| 11879 | Holy Trinity National School, Weymouth | 20th century | 1 vol |
| 11813 | WImborne Cemetery | 1889-2022 | 3 vols |
| 12241 | Dorset Businesses | 1879-c.2000 | 12 docs |
| 11870a | Folke Parish Council | 2001-2021 | 2 files |
| 11870b | Cam Vale Parish Council | 1959-2008 | 2 vols |
| 12129 | Parkstone, St Peter’s Parish | 1911-2018 | 5 boxes |
| 12203 | Dorset Weavers, Spinners and Dyers | 1955-2020 | 2 files |
| 12200 | Cotton and Sons, Undertakers | 1917-1980 | 5 vols |
| 12246 | Dorset Royal Engineers | c1921-1998 | 11 docs |
| 11597c | West Dorset Conservative Association | 1948-1954 | 1 vol |
| 11597b | Up Cerne Parish | 1950-2004 | 3 vols |
| 12244 | Dorset Slides | 1980s-1990s | 12 slides |
| 11597a | Cerne Abbas Parish | 1977-1997, 2020-2021 | 1 box |
| 12037 | Foster’s School Sherborne | 1976-1987 | 5 docs |
| 11954 | Dorset South and West Methodist Circuit | 1887-2017 | |
| 12128 | West Dorset Scouts | 1910-2016 | 1 box |
| 12211 | Methodist Church booklets | 1930-1997 | 29 docs |
| 12242 | Dorset Postcards | 20th century | 13 docs |
| 12210 | Kinson Methodist Church | 1956-2024 | 25 docs |
| 12245 | Dorset Photographs | 1960s-1970s | 29 docs |
| 11780 | Wool Parish | 1970-2011 | 2 boxes |
| 11781 | DORCHESTER UNITED CHURCH | c1875-2022 | 8 files |
| 11921 | Ibberton Parish: St Eustace Church | 1982-2019 | 10 files |
| 11598 | OWERMOIGNE WOMEN’S INSTITUTE | 1983 | 1 vol |
| 11714 | Studland Women’s Institute | 1921-1952 | 2 vols |
| 12112 | Radipole Parish District Church Council and PCC Minutes | 1973-2002 | 4 bdls |
| 12122 | Weymouth Drama Club | 1953-2014 | 2 boxes |
| 11567 | Carter and Fookes Charities, Wool | 1886-1973 | 1 box |
| 11841 | Minute Book | 2008-2018 | 1 vol |
| 11591 | Swanage Methodist Church Outlook Magazine | 1981-2016 | |
| 11594 | Joseph Fowler: Schoolmaster of Sherborne School | 20th century | 1 file |
| 11560 | West Moors Lawn Tennis Club | 1933-1980s | 1 box |
| 11593 | Thomas Arthur Burton: Musician and Composer | 20th century | 2 boxes |
| 11713 | St Mary Magdelene Church, Sherborne | 1975-2018 | 2 vols; 8 files |
| 12100 | Jurassic Coast Trust | 1999-2005 | 1 box |
| 12013 | Dorchester and District U3A | 1995-2016 | 6 files |
| 12089 | Whitchurch Canonicorum Parish | 1948-1991 | 3 vols |
| 11516 | Parrett and Axe Parish Council | 1974-2019 | 1 box |
| 11910 | Jo Thomas Collection: Building Stones in Dorset | 1980s-2020 | 19 vols |
| 11904 | Owermoigne Parish Council | 1886-1971 | 1 box |
| 11527 | Langton Matravers Parish Council | 1967-2013 | 1 box |
| 11877 | East Stoke Parish Council | 1894-2008 | 4 vols |
| 12186 | High Stoy Parish Council | 1974-2023 | 1 box |
| 11580h | Glass plate negatives of Dorset | c20th century | |
| 12254 | T E LAWRENCE PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION | C1910-1990S | 1 box (tbc) |
| 10786 | Inner Wheel Club of Dorchester | 1950-2017 | 1 box |
| 11592 | Lymiad Research | 21st century | 3 boxes |
| 12075 | Advearse Archive | 2012-2014 | 3 boxes |
| 9129 | WYTCH FARM OIL FIELD ARCHIVE. | 7 items | |
| 11735 | DORCHESTER CENTRE WOMEN’S INSTITUTE | 1930s-1990s | 2 boxes |
| 11259 | Dorset Cyclists’ Network | Jan – Sep 2019 | 3 docs |
Twas an enjoyable time giving me more of an insight into what goes on behind the scenes. Now, how many more maps are there to sort😂😂😭😭