A free event in Birmingham next month for teachers, historians, and anyone interested in local history. Featuring talks and workshops on Oral History, Digital Storytelling, photography, and more. Book your place here .
Venue: STEAMhouse, 108 Digbeth, Birmingham B5 6DT
Date: 15th June, 9.30am – 2pm
CB Resourcing are recruiting for a Local Studies Librarian in the public library sector. It is a short-term contract until March 2020. The local authority is unnamed, but it seems to be in London. Find out more here.
Elizabeth Melrose (CILIP LSG Treasurer) recently presented Clements Hall Local History Group with their Alan Ball Award 2018 certificate. Susan Major accepted on behalf of everyone involved.
Clements Hall were highly commended in the e-publication category for their online resources exploring the impact of the First World War on the Scarcroft, Clementhorpe and South Bank areas of York. Following a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, they worked on a two year research project. Topics include:
You can also find a list of local men who died in the area and those listed on the Scarcroft School memorial. The website is developed by SeeGreen.
We are increasingly impressed with the quality of resources this category, which suggests that web services and tools are becoming more accessible to community history projects.
May is local history month. Organisations across the country will be celebrating the history of their area, and encouraging people to get involved in local heritage. If you are on social media, follow the hashtag #localhistory19 for updates.
Libraries and archives will be hosting loads of public events this month, from introductions to family history to heritage walks. Here are some that caught our eye:
Bedminster Library are hosting four excellent events
Redbridge Libraries are running a number of events this year, including:
More details: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/vision-redbridge-events-8294877519
The Core Library in Solihull will be doing some free guided heritage walks of the town centre.
The walks will take place on:
More details: https://solihulllife.wordpress.com/2019/04/29/guided-walks/
CILIP are offering 6 bursary places to BAME professionals, giving a full 2 day delegate place and accommodation for the night of 3 July.
The CILIP Conference (3-4 July, Manchester) is one of the largest and most eagerly anticipated events in the library and information sector and brings together around 500 professionals from across the sector to share experiences, knowledge and expertise. The keynote speakers include Liz Jolly, Patrick Lambe, Hong-Anh Nguyen and Kriti Sharma. The programme is being finalised but you can see an outline of the session content at cilipconference.org.uk. Keep up to date by following @CILIPConf19.
To submit your application for the bursary place, please write no more than 300 words saying what you would get out of attending the conference and how you would share what they have learnt with others. Please send your application to events@cilip.org.ukwith the title “BAME Bursary Application” by Friday 10 May 2019 and include the following details:
Any BAME professional, at whatever stage of their career, can apply for one of these places. We are particularly interested in hearing from people who have never been to the CILIP Conference before, and who wouldn’t ordinarily be able to go.
Like a few other library authorities, Worcestershire has a Young Poet Laureate to encourage young aspiring poets. An annual competition takes places each year at which they are chosen. The winner is then paid to write and perform poems through the year at events.
From a conversation with Natalie, who organises it, we thought it might be a good idea to ask for a poem about the collections in The Hive, Worcester’s library and history centre. We invited the current Laureate, C.J., to come for a tour round so they could see the amazing things held in the local studies library, archives and archaeological stores. It also gave us a chance to explain what we did, the importance of the sources, and why people come to us to use us.
It’s not a new idea and others have asked for poems or songs. The band Show of Hands wrote a song for Exeter Museum’s reopening called Home to a Million Thoughts which captures the museum’s atmosphere and what it means to people. Others have got people to write poems or song too, but we’ve never had anyone to do this for us.
After a while we received the final piece – Concrete and Gold. We were blown away with how C.J. had captured our essence. After talking with County Council colleagues (we were very excited wanted to tell lots of people how good it was!) we came up with the ideas of filming it so we could more easily share it. So colleagues who were more skilled at filming and edited helped when C.J. visited. This enabled us to share widely on social media, and the response has been great.
So if you have a Young (or not so young) Poet Laureate in your area why not see if they can write you a poem.
Paul Hudson
Learning & Outreach Manager
Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service
3, 000 images from the Express & Star photo archive are now freely available online. This a great resource for those interested in daily life in the West Midlands during the 20th century. The initial digitisation concentrates on images of industry and covers the 1970s to 1990s.
The resource is the outcome of an Heritage Lottery Fund project run jointly by
Midland News Association Ltd, Wolverhampton City Archives, and the University of Wolverhampton. Based in Wolverhampton, the Express & Star newspaper has been covering the region since the 1880s. The paper’s photographic collection has c.
1 million images making it a major source for social history in the West Midlands.
The archive of the Local Population Studies journal is now freely available on the Hathi Trust Digital Library.
Since 1968, Local Population Studies has published original research on the history of population and society. It has particularly encouraged the publication of local case studies by academic and non-academic authors. Being UK based, there are many studies on parishes and towns across Britain in the journal back issues. It also publishes articles on primary sources and research methods. Find out more about the journal and the Local Population Studies Society here. The archive covers the years 1968 to 2008.
We are delighted to announce the winners of the Alan Ball Awards for 2018. The awards recognise excellence in local history publishing. There were some exceptional nominations this year, which the judges found difficult to separate. Congratulations to all winners, runners-up and highly commended entries.
Best print publication
Winner: A Swindon Time Capsule: Working Class Life 1899-1984. Highlights from the Dixon-Attwell Collection held at Swindon Central Library – Swindon Libraries.
Runner-up: Devon during the First World War – Devon Remembers Heritage Project (South West Heritage Trust)
Highly Commended: Dock Street Memories, Ellesmere Port – Celia Webber ed. Ellesmere Port Local and Family history society, Cheshire West and Chester Council.
Best e-publication
Joint Winner: Poole, the First World War and its Legacy https://www.pooleww1.org.uk/ (Poole Museum)
Joint Winner: Bristol Old Vic Heritage – Archive https://bristololdvic.org.uk/archive (Bristol Old Vic Theatre / Amy Spreadbury)
Highly Commended: Clements Hall Local History Group (First World War: Then and Now) –www.clementshallhistorygroup.org.uk
A date for your diaries in 2019. The ARA are holding a free event on the 29 January on how to engage diverse communities with archives. This is a topic of interest to many involved in local studies collections, and would also be an good CPD opportunity.
Speakers and topics include:
Penny Allen (The Courtyard Hereford) & Elizabeth Semper O’Keefe (Herefordshire Archives and Records Centre)
‘Who lived in a house like this: creatively engaging care home residents’
Julie Melrose (Islington Local History Centre)
‘Lost Trades of Islington: a collaborative and cross-general project’
Paul Dudman, University of East London
‘Archives, Activism and Action: Participatory Cultural Heritage and Hidden Voices – the Role of Civic Engagement in Enhancing Archives?’
See the full program and book details here.
CILIP Local Studies Group 