We'd like the LHSA collections to be used even more by our colleagues across Edinburgh University, and last week we hosted a showcase event to promote the collections and introduce ourselves to people who hadn't heard about us before.
Invaluable help came in the form of Martyn Pickersgill, Wellcome Trust Reader at the Usher Institute's Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society). Martyn worked with us to draw up an invite list and decide on the format for our showcase. We started off with a welcome to the Centre for Research Collections, where we are based, and then gave short presentations on the service as a whole, the collections we hold, and previous research use (and a big thank you to Gayle Davis, Senior Lecturer in the History of Medicine, for contributing the third and final presentation to the event).
We also gave time over to a display that picked out the different record types in, and the topics covered by, the collections - a couple of pictures follow showing the display (along with Carmen our Employ.ed intern having a preview before everyone arrived!). Louise chose the items very carefully to help those attending see our collections in new ways and be inspired by the richness of the information held. It seems to have worked as a couple of the tweets that followed the event commented on how fascinating the material is and how there are "lots of exciting possibilities for research and teaching projects".
After a quick bite to eat we got the participants to work! We split them into three groups and asked each group to think about a question: what uses are there for LHSA collections? what else could we be collecting?, and who else could we invite to a showcase event? Everyone got stuck in and we had a great discussion and feedback session.
The event has certainly sparked interest - 50% of those attending had an idea they would like to work with us on straight away, either using the collections for research or teaching, offering potential accessions, or helping with particular projects. This is a great result, especially as this is the first time we have run an event like this. But it won't be the last - do get in touch if you'd like to be involved in the next one!
