Welcome to the CILIP Local Studies Group Toolkit. The Toolkit is a freely accessible online guide that will help and inspire local studies professionals and para-professionals to provide an excellent local studies service within their authority. We also hope that it will be of use to others in the library and heritage sector.
The toolkit is split into themes. Each theme covers a key area of our work and contains sources of ideas, tips and advice.
Local Studies Collections come in all shapes and sizes, so we have chosen to focus this advice on collections held in local studies collections in focal centres around the UK, such as those held by unitary authorities or collections held in large towns or cities, but we also aim to make references to material that should be held in county collections.
The most important point is that this is a working document for the entire community, so we need your help. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, examples of best practice that you wish to share or, even better, completely disagree with points in this guide, please let us know. Put a comment at the foot of the appropriate page or send us a comment. This guide will only be as good as the contributions you make.
Editorial Board:
- Terry Bracher, Heritage Services Manager, Wiltshire
- Norma Crowe, formerly Local Studies Librarian, Medway
- Julie Davis, County Local Studies Librarian, Wiltshire
- Louise Essex, Senior Librarian, Local Studies, Warwickshire
- Martin Hayes, formerly County Local Studies Librarian, West Sussex
- Paul Hudson, formerly Learning & Outreach Manager, Worcestershire
- Alice Lock, formerly Local Studies Librarian, Tameside
- David Oswald, Local Studies Librarian, Aberdeen
- Tony Pilmer, Librarian & Archivist, Royal Aeronautical Society & formerly Local Studies Librarian, Slough (Editor-in-Chief)
- Antony Ramm, Librarian, Local and Family History, Leeds
- Tracey Williams, Heritage & Local Studies Librarian, Solihull
With thanks to:
- The Staff of Medway Archives Centre
- Will Farrell, Research Services Consultant, University of Leicester
- Sally Jenkinson, formerly Volunteers and Digital Delivery Officer, Surrey History Centre, Surrey
- Rob Jones, Heritage Officer (Library), Tower Hamlets
- Tim Powell, Places of Deposit Manager, The National Archives
- Mike Rogers, Sector Development Manager, The National Archives
- Hannah Turner, Service Development Officer, Culture, Wigan
- Andrew Walmsley, formerly Community Heritage Manager, Lancashire
- Members of the CILIP Metadata & Discovery Group Committee
Thanks must also go to Don Martin who edited the Local Studies Guidelines. These Guidelines were the basis for many of the sections in this toolkit.
CILIP Local Studies Group 