{"id":4100,"date":"2024-01-29T09:30:13","date_gmt":"2024-01-29T09:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/?p=4100"},"modified":"2024-02-13T13:22:31","modified_gmt":"2024-02-13T13:22:31","slug":"collections-fortnight-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/2024\/01\/29\/collections-fortnight-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Collections Fortnight 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The Strong-room audit<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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!<\/p>\n

The Ordnance Survey maps<\/h3>\n

The Ordnance Survey maps were the second major strand of our work. This involved another audit, of our publicly accessible maps in the searchroom.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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Accessioning<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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Other things we did<\/h3>\n

Beyond these three major tasks, we also undertook other smaller jobs as well, including the consolidation of our display materials…<\/p>\n

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…the weeding of our magazine stock…<\/p>\n

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…the appraisal of our historic paper catalogues and other files…<\/p>\n

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As well as the addition of over 2,000 digital files into our digital preservation system Preservica!<\/p>\n

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Volunteers<\/h3>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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What’s next?<\/h3>\n

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!<\/p>\n

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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!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Edit (Feb 2024)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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:<\/p>\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
D-3356<\/td>\nMILESTONES SURVEY<\/td>\n1 file and 1 CD<\/td>\n1996-2016<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3357<\/td>\nDorset Secular and Ecclesiastical Buildings<\/td>\n1 vol<\/td>\n1995-2010<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3358<\/td>\nIndustrial Engineering Works<\/td>\n5 items<\/td>\n1905-1993<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3359<\/td>\nWEYMOUTH ANZACs<\/td>\n<\/td>\nc.1916-2016<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3360<\/td>\nDorset County Farms – Fontmell Estate<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1974-1994<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3361<\/td>\nPiddletrenthide Memorial Hall<\/td>\n1 file<\/td>\n2005-2016<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3363<\/td>\nWessex Wanderers<\/td>\n2 files<\/td>\n1995-2019<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3364<\/td>\nWEST DORSET RAMBLERS<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1993-2002<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3365<\/td>\nGeorge Family of Corfe Mullen<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1890s-early 20th Century<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3366<\/td>\nAct for vesting in Trustees and their Heirs, certain Estates at Mappowder and Plush<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1797<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3367<\/td>\nThe Weymouth Consumers Gas Company<\/td>\n1 Vol<\/td>\n1933<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3368<\/td>\nSwanage Museum<\/td>\n5 Vols<\/td>\n1851-1927<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3369<\/td>\nDorchester Radio Station<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1947-1979<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3370<\/td>\nHarold Wilson Evacuee Letters<\/td>\n1 file<\/td>\nMay-42<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3371<\/td>\nOld Hall, 101 Newland, Sherborne<\/td>\n2 boxes<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-3372<\/td>\nSOLICITOR’S DEEDS<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1850-1905<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-PDS<\/td>\nPORTER DODSON, SOLICITORS<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-PIL<\/td>\nPILSDON COMMUNITY<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1958-<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
D-RAC\/UA<\/td>\nUNCATALOGUED ACCESSIONS<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
NB-21<\/td>\nCanford Heath Baptist Church<\/td>\n2 vols<\/td>\n1997-2022<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC-ABB<\/td>\nABBOTSBURY PARISH COUNCIL<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1894-1973<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC-CHB<\/td>\nCHESIL BANK PARISH COUNCIL<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1970-2010<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC-MAH<\/td>\nManston and Hammoon Parish Council<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1956-2018<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
PC-TRP\/UA<\/td>\nUNCATALOGUED ACCESSIONS<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
S-375<\/td>\nSt Osmund’s CE Middle School<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1877-1998<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-214<\/td>\nWEST PARLEY WOMEN’S INSTITUTE<\/td>\n<\/td>\n1938-2019<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-215<\/td>\nBRIDPORT CENTRAL WOMEN’S INSTITUTE<\/td>\n5 boxes<\/td>\n1917-2019<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-216<\/td>\nEAST BURTON WOMEN’S INSTITUTE<\/td>\n1 box<\/td>\n1951-2013<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-217<\/td>\nWest Parley Women’s Institute<\/td>\n1 box<\/td>\n1926-2017<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-218<\/td>\nST LEONARDS & DISTRICT WOMEN’S INSTITUTE<\/td>\n1 bdl<\/td>\n1931-1962<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-219<\/td>\nEast Stour & West Stour Women’s Institute<\/td>\n2 boxes<\/td>\n1948-2018<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-220<\/td>\nShaftesbury Morning Women’s Institute<\/td>\n1 box<\/td>\n1992-2018<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-221<\/td>\nTuckton & Southbourne Women’s Institute<\/td>\n1 box<\/td>\n1985-2018<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
W-222<\/td>\nGolden Cap Women’s Institute<\/td>\n5 vols<\/td>\n1955-2001<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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… Read more Collections Fortnight 2024<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1892,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,44],"tags":[82,592,583,109,593,24],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1892"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4100"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4125,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4100\/revisions\/4125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk\/dorset-history-centre-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}