Late last year we welcomed a new History Centre Assistant to the team here at Dorset History Centre. We thought it was time to introduce you…
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Hi, I’m Phoebe and I’m the newest History Centre Assistant. I have a background in archaeology, which I studied at university. I’ve worked for Dorset Council for 2 years, first as a Visitor Centre Assistant at Moors Valley Country Park and now as one of the HCA’s here at the DHC. Before this, I worked with digital archives as a member of the team at UK Press Online.
I joined the DHC in November and was thrown straight into the deep end with Collections Fortnight! This was two weeks of sorting through boxes from our repositories to improve our inventory and document location lists. I also had a chance to learn how to accession and catalogue new collections, with 70 new accessions processed by the whole team by the end of the two weeks.
It was a huge amount of information to learn and process, but I really enjoyed being part of the Collections Fortnight, and it definitely helped me to settle into this new role. I loved having the chance to look through the different boxes in the repositories and see first-hand the different types of documents and records we hold here. One of the most interesting things I’ve seen so far is an almost complete seal attached to document D1/9504, which detailed the appointment of stewards for the Abbott of Middleton at Milton Abbas in 1511.
Since the Collection’s Fortnight, I have been learning the role of an HCA. This involves manning the reception, enquiry and searchroom desks, dealing with customer enquiries and preparing documents ready for our booked appointments. I’ve also started cataloguing the many parish magazines for Dorset. So far, I’ve catalogued the magazines for Abbotsbury (PE-ABB/MG), Alderholt (PE-ALD/MG), Allington (PE-ALL/MG), Askerswell (PE-ASK/MG) and Bere Regis (PE-BER/MG), but I still have a long way to go!
I’m looking forward to continuing to learn more about this role and the DHC in the future!