Collecting Cultures is an occasional national HLF funding stream open to accredited libraries, archives and museums. Before the current round, which has just been announced, the last round was in 2008 and mainly focussed on museums. The aim of the fund is to encourage the heritage sector to think strategically about collecting, especially identifying gaps in collections. This also includes funding to purchase items (50% of a grant has to be spent on purchases), enabling a more systematic approach that avoids the mad dash when books, ephemera, archives and objects etc. come up for sale, trying to gather the money together, approaching various small grant providers and all that goes with that process. It also promotes local partnerships across the heritage sector and allows us to invest in skills training for staff and volunteers in collecting and curatorship. Unlike other HLF grants, Collecting Cultures projects can run across 5 years.
In this current round Creative Wiltshire and Swindon – a partnership led by Wiltshire Local Studies and including Swindon Central Library Local Studies, Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Wiltshire Conservation and Museum Advisory Service and Swindon Museum and Art Gallery – received £178,000 HLF Collecting Cultures grant towards a project totalling £213,550. We have been the only applicant in the South West region to receive the grant, so we have been especially delighted by our success.
So why Creative Wiltshire and Swindon? Wiltshire and Swindon has a long history of nurturing and inspiring creative industries and individuals. These might include artists, photographers, film-makers, writers, composers, architects and designers (e.g. furniture designers) and crafts people, amongst others. Although heritage collections in Wiltshire already include some local artists (mainly paintings) and writers, the broader creative industry is not well represented and therefore remains a largely hidden part of our county’s heritage.
The physical heritage will include published and manuscript materials generated by or about the creative industries, including biographical works, letters, diaries, notes, plans, sheet music, catalogues, ephemera and other such materials; photographs, prints and engravings; fine art and objects such as ceramics and textiles; furniture, models and everyday objects that are representative of the creativity community. It will cover materials that are about creative individuals and organisations that are either rooted in local communities and their history and or inspired by Wiltshire’s communities, its history and landscape. So, for example, our collecting might range from ceramics from an established pottery in a town or village; sketches and paintings from notable local artists, such as Ken White and Walter Poole; traditional textile and lace making; records and posters from the local music scene in the 1970s and 1980s, such as the band XTC in Swindon; to an Alex Moulton bicycle or a James Dyson vacuum cleaner! Where the originators of the works are still living, we will also seek to secure their stories through oral history to add a further dimension to the interpretation of collections.
Materials will be acquired by accredited museums in the county of Wiltshire and Borough of Swindon and the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre (Wiltshire and Swindon Archives and Wiltshire Local Studies Library), with accessible copies or surrogates, where relevant, for Swindon Central Library (Local Studies collection) and non-accredited museums. Across the five-year period we hope to draw into the partnership other museums in the county and borough.
The project will enable us to develop a cohesive strategic collection policy for creative collections across the heritage sector in Wiltshire and Swindon, this includes the creation of an acquisition panel that will have an overview of what is collected. Training to develop skills for staff and volunteers, through workshops and additional one to one support as appropriate, in areas of proactive collecting, conservation, and interpretation will be provided. The Wiltshire Local Studies Library will employ two officers for a day a week each across an eighteen month period to source and catalogue local studies and archive material; assist museum colleagues and their communities in identifying creative industries and their products; and help with community learning and participating activities. Costs for our Heritage Education Officer to work with Local Schools are also included within the grant.
This is a great opportunity for the local heritage sector to engage new audiences for local studies, archives and museums through these collections. In addition to a number of local exhibitions and talks in museums, libraries and at the History Centre, we will be using current creative practitioners to work with new and existing audiences, through workshops, where audiences will be invited to respond to newly acquired material through creative writing and the arts. We will also work with schools developing a theme of ‘take one object / item’ that has been deployed successfully by the National Gallery, developing lesson plans based on a single object and to tie in with an Arts Award (a national accreditation for young people).
These are only the briefest of details. I am happy to share our activity plan with colleagues and would encourage local Studies libraries to consider any future rounds of collecting Cultures. I will also let you know how we are progressing against our aims.
Terry Bracher
Terry.Bracher@Wiltshire.gov.uk
CILIP Local Studies Group 