A Moving Story - What We Did In April
April is typically a time for a spring clean and sorting out storage, and the archives have again been a hive of activity as we get the collections ready for our move.
In last month’s update we told you about the mammoth task of barcoding and how that all works - as I write we have barcoded over 7723 containers.
Most of these containers are boxes of varying shapes, or folders or wrapped volumes, but we also have the trickier problem of rolled maps in cotton bags and how to fix a barcode to them. Our Conservator Rachel has done a sterling job of attaching special indestructible barcode labels to them. She said it has involved untying a lot of knots and she is now our resident knot expert.
Siobhan has been busy comparing a box of aerial photographs with our existing aerial photography collections, to identify where we could fill any gaps and weed out duplicates. Gloves are definitely required for handling photographs - in a fetching purple shade too!
Our next stop is with our wonderful team of volunteers and as we are in the final few weeks of onsite volunteering it’s a good opportunity to shine a spotlight on some of their tasks. They have given up an amazing 205 hours of their time throughout April to support us with collections listing and repackaging.
One focus of volunteer activity has been a survey of 25 inch Ordnance Survey maps, checking through and adding descriptions with notes on landscape, transport and place names. An amazing 500 maps have been processed and will be added to our online catalogue. The task will continue with any remaining maps when we are in our new centres.
Another listing activity has involved five boxes of title deeds covering the Macclesfield and Nantwich area. Karen is nearing the end and has produced a list of the contents. She also tells me she has enjoyed getting to grips with 18th century writers’ horrible scrawl!
One of our volunteers who has contributed at all stages of the Gems process, from selection to geolocating, has had a sneak preview and was “delighted” with the online Gems experience. At a user testing session he told us the website “draws you in from the home page onwards.” Overall, the experience was considered “excellent” and “really impressive” – “a few minor tweaks to make it outstanding” and “really user friendly.”
Sounds exciting? We think so! Look out for further updates on our new online experience, Cheshire Archives: Explore where for the first time our catalogues, images, indexes, Gems and more will all be in the same place.
What have the Archivists come across this month? Life is never dull at a local authority archive due to the variety of records we hold. Our boxes of delights this month have yielded …
a number of pages of handwritten 19th century riddles, like “what kind of wig is it that a barber cannot make? An earwig!” or “How many days are there in the year? 325, because 40 days are lent…”
Notices banning poaching and a very interesting one prohibiting the removal of stone from the sea wall at Heswall - or face transportation!
A beautiful estate plan of the Adlington estate
Silhouette portraits of members of the Hayes family of Frodsham.
Our Community Engagement Officers continue their work out and about. Anya has built upon a busy March collecting memories of Leighton hospital for our Leighton’s Legacy living memory project. She has now begun transcribing and summarising three hours of captured conversation. She tells me that “it’s been a slow but rewarding process, listening back at half-speed, pausing and revising moments to ensure every story was recorded accurately” and “re-immersing myself in these stories, so generously shared, helped deepen my understanding and has also helped shape the creative project they will inspire.”
That’s all for now - keep an eye out for our update next month!
By Kate Tobias-Buick, Archivist
