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Book Now for LSG Conference 2025

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We are pleased to start the New Year by announcing the theme and line-up for our annual conference. In 2025, we will be exploring community wellbeing with a great range of speakers in Manchester.

Local Studies and Archive services contribute to community health and wellbeing in many ways. It makes our collections and expertise ever more relevant to our organisations, customers and local areas. Come and join us in the historic Central Library for informative sessions on how you can design impactful activities and brilliant outcomes, in the most creative ways.

Local Studies and Community Wellbeing

Date and time: Monday 7th April 2025 | 10 am – 4 pm.

Location: Performance Space, Manchester Central Library, St Peter’s Square, Manchester, M2 5PD.

Register via the CILIP website. (CILIP members should login first to receive the member rate).


Speakers confirmed include:

  • Dr Michala Hulme, award-winning Historian and Genealogist, Podcaster, and who has appeared on many national and regional TV programmes. Michala will be talking about her popular podcast and especially how Family History has been supporting men’s mental health.
  • Karen Shannon, CEO Manchester Histories and Hon. Research Fellow at Manchester University. Manchester Histories, with a hub in Manchester Central library, deliver inspirational work with local communities, and we will have an introduction to their new Heritage and Wellbeing Toolkit
  • Isobel McDonald, Glasgow Life Museums. Glasgow’s award-winning museums are rooted in the community, and we will learn about their work, notably with the Bangladesh community and the city’s Lascar Heritage, winner of the Alan Ball Award for Local History.
  • Julie Davis, Archives and Local Studies Lead officer, and colleagues from the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, will reveal what has been learned from their community engagement projects
  • Hannah Turner, Local Studies Librarian for Lancashire Archives, also giving insights into their community work in the county.
  • Dr Paul Carter, Principal Records Specialist (Collaborative Projects), The National Archives, will be talking about the impact of volunteering
  • Matt Grace, English Heritage, will be introducing their new online content for historic buildings and how they can support wellbeing.
  • Plus, a tour of Manchester Central Library and an introduction to the Local History Collections.

Ticket Prices

  • £25 Member (login via CILIP website to receive member rate)
  • £27 Employer Partner (login with your employer partner details to receive this discount)
  • £30 Non-Member

Register via the CILIP website.

Lunch is provided.

Alan Ball Awards 2024

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We are once again seeking nominations for the Alan Ball Awards – the UK’s leading prize for local history publishing.

The object of the Awards is to encourage the production of high quality publicly or locally funded local history publications. They are open to all heritage and community organisations; and individuals that have self-published. Our criteria for assessing the award are not just about the quality and content of a publication, but its whole journey i.e. how it was conceived, who is involved and how it was funded.

We especially welcome submissions from libraries, archives, museum and archaeology services, small local museums and heritage centres, Local History societies, community history projects and local authors.

2024 Award

We have three categories:

  • Print publication – for best hardcopy publication 
  • E-publication – for best digital publication (e-books, journals, websites or virtual exhibitions, blogs and apps – we are sorry but we are unable to include digital installations within heritage or museum sites)
  • Community Award – for best community publication in either category

The publication needs to have appeared between January and December 2024.

Nominations including a copy of the publication or link to e-content to be submitted by end of January 2025. 

For further information, and to submit an application, visit our nomination page.

Winners of Volunteer Awards announced

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CILIP Local Studies Group are delighted to announce the winners of the Volunteer Awards (Under 25 and Over 25 categories). These are new awards, and we had a good range of nominees, which made the judging very difficult. The winners are:

Under 25 category

Jess Pascal, University of Leicester Library

Over 25 category

There are joint winners in this category: Anne Langley, Warwickshire County Record Office and Stella Robinson, Wakefield Libraires.

Congratulations to all our winners and to everyone who was nominated. An award ceremony will be arranged soon.

We are hoping to continue the awards next year, so if you have a volunteer who you would like to nominate again, or anyone who has volunteered during 2024, please check the blog for details later in the year.

Alan Ball winners 2023 announced

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Logo for Alan Ball Award

CILIP Local Studies Group and the Library Services Trust are pleased to announce the winners of the Alan Ball Awards for the best local history publications that were published in 2023. Once again, we had a good number of high-quality publications that made judging very difficult. The winners are:

Hardcopy joint winners

Glasgow Life Museums, Scotland’s Lascar Heritage: Investigating the lives of South Asian Mariners (Glasgow Museums Publishing in Association with the Bangladesh Association Glasgow, 2023). Available here: https://shop.glasgowlife.org.uk/products/scotland-s-lascar-heritage-investigating-the-lives-of-south-asian-mariners

Paula Stevens, Lavenham House Histories (Self-Published, 2023). Available here: https://paula-stevens.sumupstore.com/

Hardcopy highly commended

Kevin Crangle, Ardglass and Dunsford County Down Biographies (Self-Published, 2023). Available here: https://ulsterhistoricalfoundation.com/shop/products/ardglass

Lancashire Archives, Archives: Lancashire History Magazine (issues 2 & 3, 2023). More information here: https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/libraries-and-archives/archives-and-record-office/archives-magazine/

E-publication winner

Harlaxton History Society website 2023; www.harlaxtonhistory.co.uk

Community Project publication winner

Newport History Group, Lest We Forget: Poppy Project 2022 (Newport on Tay, Fife, 2023). Available here: https://www.newportontayhistory.org.uk/shop/Lest-We-Forget-p601784795

Congratulations to all the winners and to everyone who submitted their publications. An online presentation event will take place in July 2024.

Nominations are open for hard copy and e-publications published in 2024, closing date end of January 2025.

New award announced: Local Studies Volunteer

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We are excited to announce two new pilot awards for library or archive volunteers. We are looking for an outstanding volunteer under the age of 25, and a volunteer who is over 25 years of age, who have contributed to a local studies library or archive project.

We welcome nominations from a library or archive professional for a volunteer who has developed their own skills significantly or has shared their skills with others.

Before making a nomination, please consult the CILIP volunteer guidelines.

The deadline for application is Monday 10 June.

The online ceremony will be held in July (date to be confirmed)

The successful nominees will each receive a prize of £100 in National Book Tokens.

To make a nomination, please fill in the form on this page.

We are recruiting for a secretary

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Want to get involved with the Local Studies Group Committee? We are recruiting for a secretary.

Are you looking to boost your professional development in a friendly networking environment? The Local Studies Group is an active special interest group of CILIP. We organise conference and networking events; provide e-publications such as the Local Studies Toolkit and Local Studies Librarian blog; and run the national Alan Ball Awards for Local History publications and the Dorothy McCulla Award for outstanding contribution to Local Studies Librarianship. We are looking for someone to fill the Secretary role on our committee.  It is a great opportunity for anyone hoping to get actively involved in CILIP, develop skills, and enhance career opportunities.

As an officer on the Committee, you will be involved in shaping the future of the LSG and the activities it delivers. As the secretary you will act as a conduit for information sent out from and to the CILIP Members team. You will also receive correspondence regarding the McCulla Award and E-Alan Ball Award. The role also includes sending out agendas and making notes of our committee meetings twice a year and working with the Chair to create a very short annual report and review of the year for our business plan and AGM. There are also opportunities to represent the LSG in the wider CILIP community networks.  All our meetings are on Zoom.

To find out more, please contact Terry Bracher LSG Chair at Chair.LSG@cilip.org.uk  or terry.bracher@wiltshire.gov.uk

Winner of the McCulla Award 2022 announced

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The well-deserved winner of the McCulla Award 2022 is Tony Pilmer. At present he is Librarian and Archivist at the Royal Aeronautical Society, but has had a long career in local studies in Slough and Hertfordshire. He has been active in CILIP’s Local Studies Group and the South sub-group for many years and also belongs to CILIP’s Rare Books Group. He has shared his enthusiasm for local studies through the organisation of study days, visits and contributions to the LSG blog, but most outstanding has been his work over the last four years on the Local Studies Toolkit, an online resource for all who work with local studies collections. Tony developed the initial plan and recruited a group of contributors, proof readers and checkers. He promoted the project and managed the volunteers. It is in a format, devised by him, which allows easy updating and contribution from users and will be an invaluable tool for those who work in the field.

Working with cultural heritage data: forthcoming training courses

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There are two forthcoming training courses on working with cultural heritage data that may be of interest to local studies librarians:

The theme for the school this year is Digital Image Curation. There will be a Q&A about the school and how to apply on 25 January, 2pm GMT. Register for the zoom link.

There will be further face-to-face sessions in York and Wales before July 2023, so watch out for those if they are more convenient to get to.

Nominations open for Alan Ball Awards 2022

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Once again we are looking to reward outstanding local history publications and we need your help.

Do you know of an excellent local history book or website that was published in 2022? Then please think of submitting a nomination to the Alan Ball Awards: we want to reward as diverse a range of publications as possible. The Awards are now open to all heritage and community organisations, as well as individuals that have self-published. This year we will have three categories:

  • Print publication – for best hardcopy publication 
  • E-publication – for best digital publication (e-books, journals, websites or virtual exhibitions, blogs and apps. Please note: we are unable to include digital installations within heritage or museum sites)
  • Community Award – for best community publication in either category.

Deadline for submission is the end of February 2023. Further details and how to submit nominations can be found at: https://lslibrarians.wordpress.com/local-studies-publication-e-publications-of-the-year-awards/

In a Manor of Speaking: An introduction to manors and manorial documents

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Ever wanted to know more about manors and their records? Join Beth Elliott, Project Archivist for the Everyday Life in a Northumbrian Manor project, on Monday 27 June for an introduction. This online talk will look at manorial documents and the wealth of information that can be gained from them.

There will also be details about the Everyday Life in a Northumbrian Manor project. The project will work volunteers to transcribe collections of Northumbrian manorial records and make them available online.

Register on Eventbrite