Five weeks ago I was very lucky to be chosen as the first
Research Intern at LHSA. I was so surprised
when the phone rang offering me the position, and I am so happy that I have
been given such a fantastic opportunity which I have gained a wealth of skills
and knowledge from, which I can take with me throughout my career. I should start by telling you how I got here,
and why the Research Internship at LHSA appealed to me so much.
I graduated in May last year with a BA Honours in
Photography and Film, with my dissertation focusing on the artistic influences
on the first photographic images of 19th Century male hysteria,
opposed to its highly researched female counterpart. Like many people, it was
my dissertation that really sparked my interest in researching historical
topics, and I found I really enjoyed it, and much to my family’s disappointment
I enjoyed telling them every detail I found out along the way! So when the
opportunity to be the Hospital Community Intern for Artlink’s 200 Years 200 Objects exhibition, commemorating the Royal Edinburgh Hospital’s bicentenary came
up, I knew I had to apply, and fortunately I was offered the position. My role
involved talking to the staff and patients at the REH to unearth interesting
stories and objects which told the Hospital's 200 year history. I loved talking
to the Hospital community, and having the chance to share stories from one
person to the next. Once I had completed the voluntary internship at Artlink,
it really confirmed to me how much I wanted to pursue a career within research,
particularly in a way which would benefit others, and allow them to enjoy its
findings as much as I did. So when I
discovered LHSA were advertising for a new paid Research Internship, which
focused on developing its WW1 collection into educational resources, it caught
my attention immediately. So, to be been given this incredible opportunity and
be part of the LHSA team for 5 weeks has been an amazing experience.
In the first few weeks of the internship I began this
project by selecting and choosing some of the material from LHSA’s WW1
collection to develop for school children.
This initial task was very difficult, as there is so much interesting material
to choose from. I knew I had to find something which would appeal to my chosen
target audience of school children, but could also be adapted to fit in with
the requirements of the Curriculum of Excellence and National qualifications. With
this in mind, I knew I had struck gold when I opened both Nurse Ethel Millar’s
autograph book and the Craigleith Chronicle Hospital Magazine.
Nurse Ethel Millar’s autograph book contains incredible drawings,
sketches and poems dedicated to her by
wounded soldiers she nursed in her ward at Craigleith Hospital, now the Western General Hospital. The Craigleith
Chronicle is equally as rich in content, containing 36 issues filled with
stories, diary extracts, poems, sketches and artwork from various members of
the Hospital community throughout the duration of the War. Both are unique in
their own right, and if I am honest I find it very difficult to choose which is
my favourite, but what I love most is how both offer a more personal insight
into life during the War. It was a pleasure to go through both materials
finding the gems which could be developed further into online resources. One of
my favourites, which I have chosen to be part of the Schools Educational Package
on LHSA’s website is ‘War Time Wooing’, a short poem from the Craigleith
Chronicle explaining how due to rationing and the shortage of flowers, it became acceptable to woo a woman with bacon! (Which I think, some may agree could be considered a great strategy, even today!)
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| War Time Wooing from the Craigleith Chronicle |
What I absolutely loved throughout the research phase of the project was having the
opportunity to be a detective, and find the same individuals mentioned throughout
both sources. I have found some
extremely interesting characters such as Nurse Helm, who is congratulated in
the Chronicle for “surviving her escape of a very unpleasant experience” after
the hospital war ship she worked on was torpedoed and incredibly she
survived. She is also mentioned in Ethel
Millar's autograph book in a tiny scribble of a short poem titled ‘To Nurse Helm’ by
a Private in the ward, which gives the impression she was a force to be
reckoned with. Very fitting when comparing both sources! She will also be part
of the online educational package for schools, as she is a great example of
women’s changing roles throughout the Great War.
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| Illustrated page from Ethel Millar's autograph book |
The internship has prepared me well in selecting my final
edit for schools educational resources. I have met with teachers and education
officers to get their opinions on how my chosen material can be developed,
which has been invaluable throughout the final selection phase of the
project. I have also met professionals
from The National Records of Scotland (NRS) and the National Library of Scotland to
find out how they develop their own archive material into online educational resources
for schools, which has also been extremely beneficial for the project and for
my own personal knowledge.
I have had the opportunity to see how archive material can
also be developed for use in the classroom, by taking part in a Drama based education
workshop at NRS. The workshop was absolutely fantastic, something I am quite
surprised to say as I hated drama at school.
But having the chance to be a kid for the day and take part in the same
drama based activities primary school children experience, truly was a
brilliant way to see how archive material can be used in such a creative way
for learning.
I am sad to say that I am now in my final week of the
internship…. But I will leave on a high
note as I will spend the last week physically making a replica of Ethel Millar's autograph book in aid of the ‘Explore your Archive’ campaign which aims to promote
the amazing things which can be found in archives to the public. I am very excited to make this so that many
others can physically handle such a beautiful and insightful object again and
again…
I have loved every minute of the internship, and look
forward to using the skills I have gained from it in my future career.
Kirstin Cunningham
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My name is Sharon
Boyle and I’m the Archive Intern at LHSA. I
completed the MSc in Information Management and Preservation at the University
of Glasgow in August of this year. I did my course cataloguing placement at
LHSA last year, so it’s been exciting to return there to start my career as an
archivist.
My internship has
afforded three very important opportunities; further cataloguing experience,
involvement in the range of activities that are carried out in any busy archive
and a chance to find out more about the use of archival material in education.
This last subject is of real interest to me as it was the focus of my MSc
dissertation
My main task was to
continue cataloguing LHSA’s collection of photographs into the database, so my
first week was spent assessing them and creating a hand list of our holdings.
After three weeks this list had been completed and Archivist Laura advised me
which series they fitted into. It was necessary, however to create some new
series as my search had uncovered groups of photos that did not readily fit
into existing ones. I found, for example, a number of photos of hospitals
abroad and individual portrait shots of notable physicians and medical staff.
Some series were so large that creation of sub-series was also needed; there
are a huge number of items relating to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE), so
photographs will comprise different sub-series within this large series,
including one of residents (junior doctors), one of cliniques (medical teams responsible
for the care of patients on wards headed by a senior member of medical staff)
and others, including buildings and other staff members. I’m currently at the
stage where I have begun to enter items into our photographic database.
I have also had chances
to work with our Conservation and Research Interns, Sarah and Kirsten. Sarah
and I worked on an accession from the Edinburgh solicitors Gillespie Macandrew
which contained title deeds and legal papers relating to the RIE. From this I was able to gain further experience of hand listing a
collection and as each item was listed, Sarah explained possible approaches to
cleaning that could be applied to the beautiful, fragile and in some cases,
very, very dirty documents!
Research Intern Kirsten
has been examining materials from LHSA’s collections that are related to WWI
and thinking about ways in which they can be used as an educational resource.
We discussed some ideas together, and I was able to take along digital images
of materials she had selected to the SCA ‘Enquiry Based’ Education Workshop
held at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. There we learned about techniques that
enable students to engage with the archival material and how to direct further
research projects based on it. The educational consultant running the event has
kindly agreed to create a resource for us, so the autograph book created by
Nurse Ethel Millar of Craigleith Military Hospital and the poems, verses and
cartoons written within by the soldiers she nursed, will soon have a wider
audience.
When I haven’t been
focusing on cataloguing the photographic collection, I’ve been involved in
learning about other aspects of running an archive service. Sarah, the
Conservation Intern and I helped Archive Assistant Stephen research some
enquiries from the public by looking through the Royal Edinburgh Hospital
Register of Deaths and the Casebooks. I helped Archivist Laura evaluate and
complete the loan papers for objects and papers from our collection which form
part of the exhibition ‘200 years 200 Objects’ which commemorates the
bicentennial of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. I also assisted the student from
the University of Glasgow who carried out her cataloguing placement at LHSA.
She continued cataloguing the same material I began work on last year, so I was
able to provide her with some contextual information about the collection.
The internship has
been a fantastic opportunity; I have handled some wonderful materials and been
given the opportunity to carry out many interesting and practical tasks. Since
my main undertaking has been cataloguing photographs, I thought I would end my
blog post with a few gems from LHSA’s collection. It’s been a real joy and
privilege for a fan of photography like myself to handle so many beautiful
images and research the stories that lie behind them.
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| RIE Residents and senior medical staff, 1874, Acc 04/11/2 |
The photograph shows a group of residents and senior
doctors at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, taken in 1874.The physician
pictured second from left in the back row is Joseph Bell, FRSE, and the main
inspiration for the character of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle was Bell’s
pupil, and wove his teacher’s talent for keen observation into the character of
the shrewd detective. The bearded man in the front row is John Hutton Balfour,
who served as dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Balfour also helped to establish the Botanical Society of Edinburgh and was nominated
keeper of the Royal
Botanic Garden in Edinburgh. His descendants
include the actress Tilda Swinton.
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| St Kentigern's Nursery trip to Edinburgh Zoo, LHB16 (courtesy of Johnston Press) |
My favourite photograph, however, documents the simple
pleasures of an afternoon trip. Pictured below are the children and staff of
St. Kentigern’s Nursery enjoying the company of the penguins at Edinburgh Zoo
in June 1949.
-----------------------------------
Hi my name
is Sarah and I am the new Conservation intern with LHSA,
which is part of the Centre for Research Collections and based at the Main
University Library, University of Edinburgh.
I came here
after recently graduating from Northumbria University in July after having
completed an MA in Fine Art Conservation, specialising in ‘Works on Paper’. During
my MA we had to complete 2 placements during the summer months, for one of my
placements I chose to come to Edinburgh and I am very pleased and excited to be
back here in Edinburgh once again to live and work.
My conservation internship is for 10 weeks and my main task is to review the
condition report and create a treatment proposal for an accession that came in
from a local Solicitors ‘Gillespie Mcandrew’ that contains a selection of Parchment
title deeds, other related papers and architectural plans relating to the RIE. I have already completed 8 weeks of my internship and
have only another 2 weeks left to complete all that I have hoped to achieve.
This internship is especially designed to give me the opportunity to gain the hands
on skills and experience that I need to help me forge a career in my chosen
field of Conservation within the UK Heritage Industry, so working on a large
accession that has many different elements involved has been a fantastic
opportunity for me and has already helped me get a 1 year internship at The
British Library, London starting at the end of December 2013.
So my first
few weeks were spent looking at each item within the accession, seeing what
items there were, what condition they were in and getting an idea as to the
possible treatments that may be involved in the future. Because of the nature
of this accession being so large and having so many different elements it was
decided that I would enlist the help of the Archive Intern Sharon who
would create a hand list for this accession. This is required so that once
treatment begins on the accession the original order that the accession arrived in can be maintained even once items may have been physically separated. The original order is a very important consideration when the
cataloguing of an accession takes place. Once the hand list was completed I was able to
start compiling information about the possible different treatments that I felt
may be required, I went about this by reading published journal articles, books
and speaking to more experienced conservators about the various treatments and
re-housing possibilities and deciding upon which were the most suitable for
this accession.
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| Large poster being humidified in a Sympathex humidification chamber |
Aside from
the parchment title deeds the main elements within this accession are many
boxes full of paper documents, letters and pamphlets, all requiring surface cleaning, tear repairs, dry pressing and re-housing. There is also a selection
of oversized maps and plans that are currently stored in rolled up tubes. These
are currently being surface cleaned, humidified and pressed and will then be
housed in Melinex Sleeves and placed into plan chests in the store.
As part of
this internship aside from the work on the accession I have also had the
amazing opportunity to work with two exhibitions that LHSA are involved
with. On Friday 15 November
the ‘200 years, 200 Objects’ exhibition opened at the Talbot Rice Gallery and on
5 December ‘Collect.ed’ exhibition opens at the Main Library
Exhibition Gallery, Edinburgh University.
As part of these two exhibitions, LHSA has lent an extensive amount of
objects to go on display. It has been my job to make sure that all of the
objects have been condition checked, packed, transported and then installed.
This was all done alongside Ruth Honeybone, Manager of LHSA and in conjunction
with the curators, artists and exhibition installation teams from each
exhibition.
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| Installing the 200 Years 200 Objects exhibition |
I have also
been writing blogs (like this one!) for the LHSA website, running a conservation training day
that was designed for people who have been thinking about conservation as a
career, and want to get a better idea of the kinds of treatments that a
conservator may have to do on a day to day basis, visiting other conservation
studios and archives, attending the Annual Icon Scotland conference in Dundee
and also giving my own 20 minute presentation to the whole of the Centre for
Research Collections about what I have been achieving during my 10 week
internship.
This internship has given me an amazing amount of opportunities that have enabled me
to enhance and expand my skill base in the area of conservation and I have gained
a huge amount of experience during my time with the LHSA and I am really looking
forward to using these skills in the future, especially within my next
internship. My time here has been an invaluable experience and one that I am
extremely grateful for and I hope that I have brought as much to LHSA as I have
gained.
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