LHSA has joined Twitter!
We’ve been talking about setting up an account for a while, and have been seeing how other archives use Twitter to let us know about their collections and services. There are also some great twitter feeds based on archival records, from the life of a West Lothian poor inspector (@PoorInspector) to the 1942 manoeuvring of the War Cabinet (@ukwarcabinet).
We’ve been inspired by these, and the recent successes of our blog, Facebook page and Flickr albums, to start tweeting too. We’ll be letting you know about our work, the material we hold and when there are new LHSA blog posts and Flickr albums to have a look at. We’ll be highlighting events we’re involved with and the work of our colleagues at the Centre for Research Collections, as well as re-tweeting anything of interest.
Please follow us at LothianHealthArchive, search for lhsaeul.
Friday, 24 February 2012
Friday, 17 February 2012
Workshops: introducing Archives and History of Medicine Research
This week the first of three workshops on ‘Archives in the History of Medicine’ took place at the Centre for Research Collections, Edinburgh University Library. These workshops are offered every year to undergraduate students by Dr Gayle Davis of the School of History, Classics and Archaeology alongside staff from LHSA. Focusing on the history of psychiatry, the sessions allow students to handle primary sources from within the Archive, focusing on the rich collection from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. They introduce important concepts for historians to consider when using archival material such as the viewpoint of the author, the audience for whom the record was intended, and the accuracy and reliability of the content.
On Wednesday, 14 students arrived to take part in the first workshop. As this is often the first time students may have used archival documents, Ruth, the Paper Conservator gave guidance on best practice in handling these unique items. Laura, the Assistant Archivist, introduced the types of records on show including administrative, staff and patient records, and some context to their creation. The students were asked to spend time in small groups studying one item each and report back to the group, engaging critically with how useful the record might be to historians. The answers were thoughtful and provoked some interesting discussion; we look forward to the next workshops which will look at the issues surrounding the use of patient case notes in historical research, and the relationship between psychiatric archives and the writing of history; looking at how and why certain types of records are kept, and how this influences the representation of history.
On Wednesday, 14 students arrived to take part in the first workshop. As this is often the first time students may have used archival documents, Ruth, the Paper Conservator gave guidance on best practice in handling these unique items. Laura, the Assistant Archivist, introduced the types of records on show including administrative, staff and patient records, and some context to their creation. The students were asked to spend time in small groups studying one item each and report back to the group, engaging critically with how useful the record might be to historians. The answers were thoughtful and provoked some interesting discussion; we look forward to the next workshops which will look at the issues surrounding the use of patient case notes in historical research, and the relationship between psychiatric archives and the writing of history; looking at how and why certain types of records are kept, and how this influences the representation of history.
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| Dr Thomas Clouston, Physician Superintendent of the REH, 1873-1908. Students spent time looking at archival records from his tenure including annual reports written by him, and patient letters that he retained for use in teaching. |
Friday, 10 February 2012
Two of Edinburgh’s hospitals remembered
This week our blog focuses on two of Edinburgh’s smaller hospitals: the Bruntsfield Hospital and the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital.
During the 19th century, the medical profession was a predominantly male dominated environment, however, changes were afoot. The Bruntsfield Hospital and Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital (EIMMH) were formed to meet the wishes of two Edinburgh pioneers of medicine, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elsie Inglis – to provide healthcare for women and to offer practical work experience for young women doctors.
Bruntsfield Hospital originated in the Edinburgh Provident Dispensary for Women and Children, which opened in Grove Street in 1878, and in 1899 Bruntsfield Lodge was acquired.
Elsie Inglis ran a Hospice in George Square from the 1890s, and the High Street from 1904, to provide obstetric care. In 1910 it merged with the Bruntsfield Hospital. The amalgamation of these two hospitals with similar aims saw medical, surgical and gynaecological work being done at Bruntsfield, with obstetric and infant work at the Hospice. They both retained their names and dispensaries, however.
During the First World War, Elsie Inglis set up the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH) which sent units to France, Serbia, Russia, Corsica and Greece. Inglis herself died in 1917 and when the SWH were disbanded it was decided to use the funds to make a hospital as a memorial to her. The result was the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital (EIMMH), which opened in 1925 in Abbeyhill backing onto Holyrood Park.
With the formation of the NHS in 1948, both hospitals became part of the Edinburgh Southern Hospitals group. The EIMMH closed in 1988 and Bruntsfield Hospital in 1989, however, they are still both fondly recalled.
LHSA contains a wealth of records regarding the life spans of the two hospitals from committee minutes, publications and photographs to staff and patient records.
More of LHSA’s images of these hospitals are available on Flicker, and those of the EIMMH were recently featured by the popular Facebook group, Lost Edinburgh.
During the 19th century, the medical profession was a predominantly male dominated environment, however, changes were afoot. The Bruntsfield Hospital and Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital (EIMMH) were formed to meet the wishes of two Edinburgh pioneers of medicine, Sophia Jex-Blake and Elsie Inglis – to provide healthcare for women and to offer practical work experience for young women doctors.
Bruntsfield Hospital originated in the Edinburgh Provident Dispensary for Women and Children, which opened in Grove Street in 1878, and in 1899 Bruntsfield Lodge was acquired.
Bruntsfield Hospital
Elsie Inglis ran a Hospice in George Square from the 1890s, and the High Street from 1904, to provide obstetric care. In 1910 it merged with the Bruntsfield Hospital. The amalgamation of these two hospitals with similar aims saw medical, surgical and gynaecological work being done at Bruntsfield, with obstetric and infant work at the Hospice. They both retained their names and dispensaries, however.
During the First World War, Elsie Inglis set up the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH) which sent units to France, Serbia, Russia, Corsica and Greece. Inglis herself died in 1917 and when the SWH were disbanded it was decided to use the funds to make a hospital as a memorial to her. The result was the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital (EIMMH), which opened in 1925 in Abbeyhill backing onto Holyrood Park.
Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital
LHSA contains a wealth of records regarding the life spans of the two hospitals from committee minutes, publications and photographs to staff and patient records.
More of LHSA’s images of these hospitals are available on Flicker, and those of the EIMMH were recently featured by the popular Facebook group, Lost Edinburgh.
Friday, 3 February 2012
From the conservation studio...
Fiona, one of our conservation volunteers, has written our blog for this week.
Fiona started volunteering with us in October last year and has been trained by our paper conservator in various techniques to clean and repair collection items. In an arrangement with our Centre for Research Collections colleagues, Fiona has been working on an item from the University’s collection to widen her experience. Here Fiona talks about a fascinating volume from Special Collections that she has been conserving by using the skills she has developed with LHSA.
This is my first visit to the Archive of 2012, and my sixth visit overall. I am now beginning to recognise lots of faces and even remember some names!
I began the day, and the year, with a really interesting lesson in how to use the camera equipment more professionally, and photographed my project so that I can use the photographs for a portfolio of my work. It was so enjoyable getting some good shots, as I had taken some pictures before I began cleaning it which could definitely be described as ‘snaps’!
I then returned to surface cleaning my project - it is a fascinating piece of work! I am conserving the Fire Insurance Plans of Edinburgh from 1892 to 1960. It includes detailed and coloured plans of the most commercial parts of Edinburgh - George Street, the Bridges, Princes St etc. - including names and type of business, and these have been resurveyed and updated several times through the 70-odd years of use. It shows every little lane and all the levels of the buildings are labelled. It is just wonderful to work with (if a little grubby at first!).
I have now finished the surface cleaning, which is good as it had been gathering dust for a long time! I have learned how to look out for different areas such as layers of paper and coloured or written-on pieces of the object as they are much more delicate and need to be respected. The Fire Plans are now much more pleasant to handle. Next time, I will be learning how to repair tears and that will allow me to finish its treatment.
Fiona started volunteering with us in October last year and has been trained by our paper conservator in various techniques to clean and repair collection items. In an arrangement with our Centre for Research Collections colleagues, Fiona has been working on an item from the University’s collection to widen her experience. Here Fiona talks about a fascinating volume from Special Collections that she has been conserving by using the skills she has developed with LHSA.
This is my first visit to the Archive of 2012, and my sixth visit overall. I am now beginning to recognise lots of faces and even remember some names!
I began the day, and the year, with a really interesting lesson in how to use the camera equipment more professionally, and photographed my project so that I can use the photographs for a portfolio of my work. It was so enjoyable getting some good shots, as I had taken some pictures before I began cleaning it which could definitely be described as ‘snaps’!
Detail showing damage to the binding
I then returned to surface cleaning my project - it is a fascinating piece of work! I am conserving the Fire Insurance Plans of Edinburgh from 1892 to 1960. It includes detailed and coloured plans of the most commercial parts of Edinburgh - George Street, the Bridges, Princes St etc. - including names and type of business, and these have been resurveyed and updated several times through the 70-odd years of use. It shows every little lane and all the levels of the buildings are labelled. It is just wonderful to work with (if a little grubby at first!).
Detail showing one of the plans and a large area of surface dirt (bottom middle)
Friday, 27 January 2012
Volunteer update: from the horse's mouth
One of our archive volunteers, Lynne MacMurchie, tells us about what she has been working on this week.
I have been volunteering at the Archive for a number of months now and today I was given two tasks; I chose the easy one first which still took me all morning to complete! This involved cataloguing “Connections”, a bi-monthly newspaper for NHS Lothian staff which was first published in 2004 - not that old compared to some of the collections here but what a great sense of satisfaction to have that all neatly catalogued and boxed.
This afternoon involved me making a contribution to an ongoing project which has been largely done by volunteers who have been here longer than me. Dr. Gordon Leitch was a Consultant Chest Physician in various hospitals in Edinburgh during the second half of the twentieth century and we have a vast collection of his papers here to be catalogued, including patient files, conference papers, photos and policy documents.
It is a great privilege to be involved in preserving all this fascinating history for current and future generations.
I have been volunteering at the Archive for a number of months now and today I was given two tasks; I chose the easy one first which still took me all morning to complete! This involved cataloguing “Connections”, a bi-monthly newspaper for NHS Lothian staff which was first published in 2004 - not that old compared to some of the collections here but what a great sense of satisfaction to have that all neatly catalogued and boxed.
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| Recent editions of Connections, now catalogued. |
It is a great privilege to be involved in preserving all this fascinating history for current and future generations.
Friday, 20 January 2012
Royal Edinburgh Hospital enclosures listing
A frequently used series of volumes in LHSA’s collection are the casebooks of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. These contain case histories of patients, written in a standard format. A feature of the casebooks is that they often have additional items inserted into them known as enclosures. These include items such as letters, charts and laboratory reports, designed to augment the information written in the book. They are usually glued or attached with metal fasteners. A decision was taken some years ago to remove all of the enclosures and house them in separate boxes; metal fasteners had rusted and damaged the volumes, and some enclosures had become loose increasing the risk that they may fall out and become separated from the relevant patient case notes. A searchable finding aid is being produced, listing each enclosure in order to improve the accessibility of these items, with information on types of document, dates, names and number of pages.
An interesting enclosure found within casebook 94 (LHB7/51/94) is a pamphlet regarding the ‘RULES, DIRECTIONS, AND RATES OF BOARD FOR THE ADMISSION OF PATIENTS’. The casebook covers the years 1910-1913, and the Physician Superintendent is noted as Dr Robertson who took office in 1908, so it is assumed that the document comes from that time period. Patients were admitted to the Hospital either as ‘paupers’ who would be paid for by the parish council, or ‘private’ who could pay varying rates depending on the quality of accommodation they would receive. Patients could be admitted by certification of their medical condition or enter voluntarily. Readers of the pamphlet are told that ‘No publicity whatever is involved in the proceedings connected with the admission of a Patient, the documents being private and confidential’, no doubt trying to allay fears of patients and their family, due to the stigma that often surrounded mental illness, something that is still pervasive today.
An interesting enclosure found within casebook 94 (LHB7/51/94) is a pamphlet regarding the ‘RULES, DIRECTIONS, AND RATES OF BOARD FOR THE ADMISSION OF PATIENTS’. The casebook covers the years 1910-1913, and the Physician Superintendent is noted as Dr Robertson who took office in 1908, so it is assumed that the document comes from that time period. Patients were admitted to the Hospital either as ‘paupers’ who would be paid for by the parish council, or ‘private’ who could pay varying rates depending on the quality of accommodation they would receive. Patients could be admitted by certification of their medical condition or enter voluntarily. Readers of the pamphlet are told that ‘No publicity whatever is involved in the proceedings connected with the admission of a Patient, the documents being private and confidential’, no doubt trying to allay fears of patients and their family, due to the stigma that often surrounded mental illness, something that is still pervasive today.
Friday, 13 January 2012
LHSA begins new work with the Scottish Council on Archives
Over the course of 2011 LHSA started to work more closely with the Scottish Council on Archives (SCA). The SCA is funded by the Scottish Government to support and promote archive and records management services across Scotland, and we've been involved in a couple of their initiatives so far.
Last year we took part in the pilot process to develop a scheme through which archives could evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses in a number of key areas. This was a lot of work for our team but it is hoped that this new framework will help archive and record management services meet the challenges we all face and be a useful tool to implement the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.
On a much lighter note, we also provided the SCA with recipes from our collection for their Edible Archive. And thanks to the SCA staff we got to sample the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh's recipe for invalid fruit tart dating from the 1950s!
This year we've started to contribute to a new piece of work via our links with the SCA: a UK-wide archive accreditation scheme. The expectation is that accreditation for archives will work in much the same way as it has for museums: increasing the sector's strength and helping with planning, improving and financing services.
Today Ruth went to the first of four workshops held across Scotland, England and Wales where members of the archive sector can help shape the accreditation scheme and comment on the standards that archive services will be assessed against. There will then be a period of wider consultation using an online forum.
Participants came from all over Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as from The National Archives, to take part in the session held at the National Records of Scotland. The workshop was led by a private archive consultant who has been developing the scheme for the last two years. The scheme and the work so far was introduced and then there was plenty of time for us to look at what was being proposed and make suggestions to ensure that the scheme suits all areas of the archive sector. It looks very promising so far!
For more information on the scheme, including the high profile organisations that are leading on its creation, please see the SCA website.
Last year we took part in the pilot process to develop a scheme through which archives could evaluate their own strengths and weaknesses in a number of key areas. This was a lot of work for our team but it is hoped that this new framework will help archive and record management services meet the challenges we all face and be a useful tool to implement the Public Records (Scotland) Act 2011.
On a much lighter note, we also provided the SCA with recipes from our collection for their Edible Archive. And thanks to the SCA staff we got to sample the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh's recipe for invalid fruit tart dating from the 1950s!
This year we've started to contribute to a new piece of work via our links with the SCA: a UK-wide archive accreditation scheme. The expectation is that accreditation for archives will work in much the same way as it has for museums: increasing the sector's strength and helping with planning, improving and financing services.
Today Ruth went to the first of four workshops held across Scotland, England and Wales where members of the archive sector can help shape the accreditation scheme and comment on the standards that archive services will be assessed against. There will then be a period of wider consultation using an online forum.
Participants came from all over Scotland and Northern Ireland, as well as from The National Archives, to take part in the session held at the National Records of Scotland. The workshop was led by a private archive consultant who has been developing the scheme for the last two years. The scheme and the work so far was introduced and then there was plenty of time for us to look at what was being proposed and make suggestions to ensure that the scheme suits all areas of the archive sector. It looks very promising so far!
For more information on the scheme, including the high profile organisations that are leading on its creation, please see the SCA website.
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