Final blog from the Library

This week has been scheduled to be my final blog before I complete my Skills for the Future, Library and Archive Trainee position and move on to more exciting things. I say more exciting things, but I really don’t expect whatever I do next will be as interesting, as rewarding or as much fun!

When people have been asking what I have been doing they assume that all I have been doing is sorting out books. Well, admittedly there has been some of that (and there is plenty more to be done), but I have been on some really interesting training visits and placements. I have been to the Millennium Library Heritage Centre and the 2^nd Air Division Memorial Library, Norfolk Records Office, Kings College Cambridge, the Museum of London, The Royal Academy of Arts, the Museums and Heritage Show, the Weald and Downland Museum and more.  There isn’t actually the space here to explain all the things I have learnt, but one thing I would recommend (both as a Skills for the Future trainee, but also as a volunteer) is for all of us who work in Museums to utilise the training course provided by SHARE. The Understanding Museums course was excellent and helps you to network with others within museum and heritage organisations.

I am pleased to say that the Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Library and Resource Centre, as it is soon to become known, is well and truly open.  So far this year, over 500 visitors have been introduced to the library and resources; tracing relatives who lived in the Workhouse, undertaking personal research, researching their family histories and being introduced to ‘behind the scene activities’ of the museum. Local history groups and students at the University of East Anglia have attended sessions. Staff and volunteers have become more aware of recording their own contribution to the museum and an archive strategy to record museum activities has been put in place.

A leaflet promoting the Library and Resource Centre has been produced outlining the resources available and an Archive Policy has been developed with staff and volunteers to ensure that their valuable contribution to the history of the building and its current inhabitants is not lost.

There is not much more to say about this fabulous opportunity I have had other than to hope that the Library and Resource Centre continues to be used even more in the future, contact us via email at gressenhall.museum.norfolk.gov.uk or telephone 01362 860563 to make an appointment to come and utilise the centre…as one visitor stated.

my day…was so incredibly worthwhile thanks to your effort and hard work on my behalf. I feel like I achieved what most people do in a week, owing to your brilliant knowledge of the collections and instinctive sense of what I needed.

When a plan comes together!

It has been great to see over the last couple of the months the library start to be utilised by many of our visitors for their own research. We have had family history researchers, recipe researchers, local village history researchers and industrial archaeology researchers to name a few.

The new space has allowed me, as a Skills for the Future Library and Archive trainee to ensure that the potential use of the library for research has been exploited at events. The research area is used to display samples of information that can be found by researchers within the library and archive:

At the ‘Workhouse Experience’ event, items were displayed that had been discovered in and around the workhouse (including pieces of building archaeology, household wares and toys), and placed alongside transcribed documents about the workhouse and the inmates.

At the ‘History Alive’ event we concentrated on material relating to the early beginnings of the workhouse; spinning records, the original Act of Parliament and dietary requirements for the inmates.

For the Garden Show being held on the 30^th June 2013, we will  display copies of garden catalogues, tool catalogues, books on gardening during the war,  education books on gardening that came from local village schools and anything else we feel will be of interest to researchers.

It is great to have the time during these events to help people with their research and share information.

If you, or your organisation, are interested in using any of our resources in your research, or have any queries on family, local, agricultural, object or workhouse history or have your own stories or histories that you wish to share, then please do not hesitate to contact us. You do not have to wait for an event, you can contact us to make an appointment via email at www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk/gressenhall

Helen Bainbridge, Museum Archive and Library Trainee

Library and Archive – history in the making!

As ‘Skills for the Future’ Library and Archive Trainee my new project for 2013 is to collate, sort and progress the history of Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum itself.

This is going to be an interesting project as the museum now has over 35 years of its own history.  Visitors who came in the 1970s are now bringing their grand-children to visit with them.

In the Library at Gressenhall, there is a collection of newspaper cuttings, leaflets, plans, documents regarding research for temporary exhibitions and posters which have been saved over time.

I am also very lucky to be able to speak to the original curator, who has been working with the Museum on another project and ask her about the time she spent working here.

I want to create not only a documented history of the museum, but include a history of the people who have made it the museum it has become.

One of the ways of doing this is to talk to anyone who has volunteered, worked or even visited the Museum and ask them to write about their time here, or to undertake recorded interviews. The exact process is yet to be decided, but if you have any exciting or interesting stories to tell about your links with the museum, then please do not hesitate to contact me:

Helen.Bainbridge@norfolk.gov.uk

Library and Archive gets warmed up!

 Over the winter months, the volunteers and the Skills for the Future Library and Archive trainee have been keeping warm by re-organising the newly decorated library at Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse Museum.

The library was originally started in 1976 as a resource to help staff identify objects and object histories donated to the Museum of Rural Life and the library now has a dedicated space in which researchers can have access to these resources.

Some of the items available include:

• Farm documents including diaries, horse remedy notebooks, stud books, invoices from Norfolk farms; books, journals and magazines relating to farming and livestock

 

•  Manuals for engines and farm machinery, Government publications and posters concerning agriculture, health, war and education, retail and agricultural show catalogues

 

• Photographs, objects, books and printed documents relating to Agricultural Unions and George Edwards

 

• Educational books and objects used in Norfolk schools, class photographs and certificates presented to pupils

 

• Trade documents (and objects used and produced by the businesses in Norfolk) for example, Daniel Brothers and R & A Taylor’s seed merchants, Briton Brush Company, Plowright, Pratt & Harbage and Miln Marsters. We also hold several Kelly’s and White’s Directories

 

• Family records and objects including letters, memorial cards, photographs, recipe and craft books, bibles and hobbies

 

• Norfolk Ordinance Survey Maps from about 1906 for much of Norfolk

 

• Newspaper cuttings collected and categorized by volunteers for over 30 years from a selection of Norfolk publications

 

• Photographs and Norfolk Chronicle glass plate negatives are available to help researchers to visualise trades, machinery, welfare, events and locations within Norfolk since the invention of photography or just used to find someone they know

 

The library will be open on special events, or a research space can be booked through an appointment. So if you, or your organisation, are interested in using any of our resources in your research, or have any queries on family, local, agricultural, object or workhouse history or have your own stories or histories that you wish to share, then please do not hesitate to contact us at www.museums/norfolk.gov/gressenhall

Helen Bainbridge
Library and Archive Trainee