Over a couple of weeks in November and December 2025 we undertook our now annual Collections Fortnight. This is a time we close to the public to work on our collections behind-the-scenes, addressing projects we otherwise would not be able to when we are open. This year was a complicated year, as short-term plans had to be made, and illnesses threatened to derail much of our hopes for the two weeks. Nonetheless, the team worked hard throughout the two weeks.
Box delivery
We started off the two week period by receiving two major box deliveries, comprising of over 1,500 boxes for us to store records in. Such deliveries require all-hands-to-the-pump to unload the lorry, and transfer the boxes into appropriate places in our building.
Chains of staff moving material into and throughout the building were quickly set-up, and over the course of a few hours on Monday and Tuesday of the first week, we worked to get all of the boxes inside and ready for use…
Re-boxing Legal Records
We already had a plan for around 700 of the boxes, and over the course of the rest of the first week, we worked to implement it.
In 2023 we received a lot of boxes from Dorset Council’s Legal department, containing a wide range of DC material. We hold this material for the Council, but access to it can only be requested through the Legal team. However, the boxes we had received the material in were generally poor quality, not archival standard, and had deteriorated over many years of handling and use. This meant that they could be very heavy, and potentially hazardous to staff who still have to access the files within them. We had therefore taken the decision to re-box all of the contents of these boxes into more appropriate, and safer, boxes.
This required lots of planning and preparation, and took much of the two weeks to do. In addition to re-boxing the material, we had to make sure we were labelling them correctly, and then were recording where they were going to be located in our repositories. This was naturally a slow process, but resulted in over 500 newly packaged and labelled boxes of Legal records, which are now much easier for staff to find and access when requests from the Legal team are received.
Of course, the process of getting rid of lots of old boxes resulted in a very large pile of cardboard that we had to send to be recycled…
During the second week, we then repeated this process with some of the unsuitable boxes in which we held coroners files and electoral registers. This now means that these records are much more securely packaged, in boxes which are much safer for staff to handle.
Box Labelling
One of the other major projects we undertook was to complete the location and box-labelling work which had long been needed for the Bankes archive material. This collection of over 800 boxes had been catalogued between 2015 and 2018, with some ongoing work in the years since then. However the final step of doing box labels, rationalisation of locations, and location listing hadn’t been finished. We therefore took the time in these two weeks to finish this long-overdue work!
Auditing work
Towards the end of the two weeks we resumed the auditing operation which had begun in 2024. This process required us to open every box, check contents to ensure that nothing was missing, as well as assessing what the condition of the records was like. Again, this is a slow process as some boxes could be very dense, full of hundreds of records, all of which needed to be checked.
As we only resumed this process towards the end of week two, we were only able to audit 180 boxes, a number considerably less than during the last two Collections Fortnights, when auditing had been a much bigger priority. Despite this small number of boxes audited though, we still found some material which had been incorrectly located, or further problems to solve in due course! This included one volume relating to Puddletown Manor, which had been listed as missing since July 1996!
Accessioning
We also used some of the time in the fortnight to catch-up with some of the accessioning backlog. Accessions are the deposits or donations of material we receive before the material is fully catalogued. Accession information lets us record basic information about the deposit, and its terms, and we often use this information to learn a little about the collection before it is catalogued so that we can make things available to the public should we need to prior to cataloguing work. This year we were able to accession 27 different deposits, and we have provided a list below of what collections have been added into our system.
The Thomas Hardy Project
We also utilised some of our volunteers to help with some extra bits of listing work for the Thomas Hardy Project. Ostensibly the collection is now fully catalogued, but there are a few little bits of the collection which still needed to be rationalised and listed, so with the help of our volunteers, progress was made on doing this work.
Once again, we would like to thank all of our volunteers for their contributions during the two week period, as well as over the course of the entire year. Their contributions, great or small, are much appreciated!
From the Stacks
Finally, on the first Wednesday of the fortnight, History Centre Assistants Anna and Kate led a small group of visitors around DHC to show off the work that we were doing whilst we were closed. We remain aware that our closure period can negatively impact some customers, and we do apologise for this, but we hoped that sessions like this From the Stacks tour would show off why we feel the need to have a closure period at all.
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Accessions Added
| Accession number | Title | Date(s) | Collection reference |
| 11523 | Dorchester Bayeux Society | 1991-2020 | D-2587 |
| 11894 | Dorchester Bayeux Society | 1950s-1990s | D-2587 |
| 12109 | Dorchester Bayeux Society | 1989-2018 | D-2587 |
| 12346 | Society of Dorset Men | 1964-2021 | D-470 |
| 12350 | HM Prison Guys Marsh | Feb 2006-Feb 2015 | NG-PR |
| 12371 | Puddletown Parish | 1922-2015 | PE-PUD |
| 12418 | Photographs of Dorchester Radio Station | mid 20th century | D-3509 |
| 12421 | H and D Purland films | 20th century | D-DFA |
| 12422 | Digital Comms for Covid-19 | 2020-2021 | D-BTM; PC-WY |
| 12423 | THE BRIDGE FAMILY OF PIDDLETRENTHIDE AND BROADWEY, DORSET by Robin Miles Bridge | 2019 | RON |
| 12424 | RON Newburgh Family | 2019 | RON |
| 12425 | Digital copy of 50 Girls Who Shouldn’t by Sylvia Townsend Warner, from Our Time | 2019 | RON |
| 12426 | Beer Hackett Village Handbook | Dec-19 | PC-BEH |
| 12427 | Transcription of WSA 2943B Additional Archives of the Long Family of Draycot Cerne; C101 3810 and C101 3811 Receivers Accounts – All Estates; and C108/111-112 Wellesley vs. Beaufort: The Long-Wellesley Custody Case | 2020 | RON |
| 12428 | Askerswell Mill Owners / Operators, Bakers and Sub-Post Masters General by Mike Dyson and Janet Thomasson | 2021 | RON |
| 12429 | Weymouth Museum oral history: Nightlife in Weymouth | 22-May-24 | D-2034 |
| 12430 | Henry’s Buttons | 2010-2025 | D-2531 |
| 12431 | Gillingham Local History Society | 2023-2025 | D-GIM |
| 12432 | Frampton Parish Council Minutes, Newsletters, Finance | 2020-2025 | PC-FRA |
| 12433 | Dr Giles Roberts – Bridport Chemist | 1799 | D-3510 |
| 12434 | Wimborne Deed | 7 Jan 1624 | D-3512 |
| 12435 | Bournemouth and Poole Cultural Hub | 2008 | D-3513 |
| 12436 | Film Reel: Metal Printing at Photo Resist Techniques Ltd in Lytchett Minster | 1960s | D-DFA |
| 12437 | Serious Fun Day CD – Dance South West | 06-Oct-05 | D-3390 |
| 12438 | Blandford and District Civic Society | 2014-2021 | D-BFM |
| 12439 | Parish newsletters | 2000-2021 | PC-ESK |
| 12440 | CHS Magazines | 2021-2024 | D-3240 |
Thank you for doing this work, explaining what’s entailed, and for the list of new accessions. Best wishes for 2026!