Summer solstice stock check

This week the Centre for Research Collections has been closed for its annual stock check. We’ve taken the opportunity to review the locations of our key items and our accessions of the last few years, as well as carry out some essential housekeeping work to make sure our stores are clean and the contents accessible.

We’ve also worked together to re-house architectural plans, photographs and glass plate negatives, update information in collections databases, install and label new shelving, and transfer outsize items to locations where they can be more easily removed and replaced.

It’s been a productive week but there’s still lots to do in next year’s stock check!

Stephen and Laura checking the contents of shelves against the database that holds information on where all LHSA collection items are stored

Visit of RCSEd staff to LHSA

On Wednesday, staff from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) Library and Special Collections visited for a tour of LHSA facilities in Edinburgh University Library (EUL). Laura and Ruth gave them a tour of the reading room, conservation studio, office space and store rooms. A number of treasured and representative items from LHSA’s collection were displayed to them, including the 1807 charter of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, photographs of royal visits, and promotional material from the HIV/AIDS collections which were recently added to the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register. Laura explained how LHSA receives new material and responds to enquiries whilst Ruth described how the conservation requirements of the records are met and the ways in which LHSA collaborates with other departments within the Centre for Research Collections at EUL. 

LHSA records on show in the Viewing Room

The photo shows Marianne, College Librarian, and Steven, Assistant Librarian, being shown collection items in the Viewing Room by Ruth and Laura. This tour was a reciprocal visit, following on from the LHSA staff tour of the RCSEd Library, which took place on 8th April this year. Such professional visits are invaluable for building up links between different organisations and sharing information and ideas.

LHSA’s contribution to the Archive and Records Association conference on social media

On Monday (13 June), LHSA’s work with Flickr, Facebook and, more importantly, our blog, will be showcased at the Archive and Records Association conference ‘Engage, Share, Participate: Widening Learning and Access to Archives through Social Media’.

(To see LHSA’s Facebook page, please log on to Facebook at www.facebook.com/ and search for ‘Lothian Health Services Archive’, and to see LHSA’s Flickr account go to www.flickr.com/photos/49439570@N08/sets/.)

Our image sets on Flickr

We have written a short presentation describing our first forays into Web 2.0 and social media, where we have had success in raising our profile, and the lessons we have learnt along the way. There will also be presentations from the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland, Perth and Kinross Council Archives, West Yorkshire Archives, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Archives.

We’re really looking forward to the opportunity to talk about this work with colleagues in the wider profession, and hope to come back with lots of new ideas.

As you would expect from a conference all about social media, you will be able to follow it on Twitter @EngageShare #afelg.

Midwifery records in LHSA

This week, our Assistant Archivist Laura gave a talk at the meeting of De Partu, a history of childbirth group affiliated with the UK Centre for the History of Nursing and Midwifery. The event celebrated the launch of the book ‘Midwifery in Scotland: A History’ by Lindsay Reid and the talk complemented this with an overview of the types of midwifery records held in the Archive and how they can be used in research.

The Archive has c.105 linear metres of midwifery-related material from a wide range of sources including Edinburgh’s maternity hospitals, the Department of Public Health, and the Centre for Reproductive Biology at the University of Edinburgh. They contain annual reports and minutes, birth registers and casebooks, staff registers, publications going back to the 1750s, press cuttings, photographs and objects to name a few.

Nurses with babies at the Elsie Inglis Memorial Maternity Hospital, 1930s

The records are widely used in research: statistics on the birth weight of babies born between 1841 and1921 have been collated and used in a longitudinal birth weight study; social historians have used information recorded in the birth records to build up a picture of the occupations and social class of the mothers using particular hospitals; and Helen Millar Lowe’s personal papers have been used to chart the campaign to keep only female staff at Bruntsfield and Elsie Inglis Hospitals. 

Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital Birth Register showing occupation of parents, 1910

The records are a fantastic resource and we hope that new research possibilities can be explored by opening them up to wider audiences.

LHSA's Edinburgh and Lothian HIV/AIDS collection awarded UN status

Our Edinburgh and Lothian HIV/AIDS collection has had the distinction this week of being added to the UNESCO UK Memory of the World Register, a list of documentary heritage which holds cultural significance specific to the UK.

During the 1980s Edinburgh was at the forefront of the battle against HIV and AIDS, with infection rates in the Lothian area 4 times the national average. A wide variety of organisations were involved in helping to tackle infection rates and provide care and support for those affected, including NHS Lothian, Lothian Regional Council, campaign groups and charities such as Crusaid. In the late 1980s, LHSA sought to record this episode in British history by actively collecting material specific to HIV/AIDS. This has resulted in a nationally significant resource; an equivalent cache of equally rich and historically important material relating is not known to exist elsewhere in the UK.

LHSA continues to collect records relating to HIV and AIDS; the 11 sub collections which make up the resource span from 1983 to 2010, covering all aspects of the medical and social response to the disease. They consist of management, administration and policy papers, educational and promotional items including pamphlets, videos, board games, posters, postcards, badges and even condoms. The collections also include material relating to the memorable, and sometimes controversial, ‘Take Care’ campaign.

Postcard from the Take Care Campaign

The Edinburgh and Lothian HIV/AIDS collection was chosen by the expert committee of the UK Memory of the World programme following a nomination and review process that began in 2010. The register is part of a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) programme to support and raise awareness of archives. We're thrilled that the importance of the Edinburgh and Lothian HIV/AIDS collection to the UK’s documentary history has been acknowledged.

Read more about the 2011 UK Memory of the World Register at Unesco UK Memory of the World Register 2011

See our online exhibition of postcards from the 'Take Care' HIV/AIDS Awareness Campaign at Take Care Campaign Postcards exhibition

No guinea pigs allowed

The title ‘Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) Admin Files’ doesn’t suggest a set of light-hearted records; but in fact amongst the dry administrative files are some gems, as illustrated by this letter from 1922. It is the RIE copy of a letter sent by the Depute Superintendent, William Caw, to the Mess President at the Residency asking for an explanation of certain matters that had been brought to his attention. The letter alleges that the residents had scattered confetti over night nurses returning to the Nurses’ Home after a night shift. To add insult to injury, they were held to be responsible for guinea pigs being put through the windows of the nurses’ dining room “early on Sunday morning”. The outcome of these enquiries is not known; certainly no response from the Mess President has been found within the RIE Admin Files. We can only imagine how he might have replied…

Letter from William Caw to the Mess President

 Residents at the RIE

After graduation a medical student had to serve a practical apprenticeship or residency. To do this he had to obtain an approved appointment as a House Officer in a hospital. Before 1950 the usual period of service was six months, and before 1948 the position was unsalaried. The first female students were admitted in the 1920s. The Residents lived within the Infirmary building in the Residency, each new intake forming a separate ‘Mess’. The Residency contained a sitting room and a dining room as well as bedrooms. Food was supplied from the hospital kitchens. Residents in the RIE were bound by two sets of rules: one drawn up by the Board of Managers; the other drawn up by the Residents themselves and governing the running of their Mess. 

Residency Mess Sunday Draw-In 1913

Cataloguing of the RIE Admin Files

The files containing this letter are not fully catalogued and we hope that they will form the basis of a future cataloguing project for a volunteer. Who knows what else may be discovered within them?

For more information about the RIE Residents, please visit section 114 of the RIE catalogue.

For a selection of Residency photos, please see our online exhibition 100 years of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Residents.

‘Unsung Heroes’ project update

We recently held a seminar for some of the Edinburgh College of Art (eca) students that will produce the new works for display in the ‘Unsung Heroes’ project.

An eca student drawing from one of the LHSA enamel badges

The students looked at a selection of historic enamel badges in the LHSA collection in order to inspire new badges that they will make in the eca’s jewellery and silversmithing department. These new badges will sit alongside examples from the LHSA collection in a Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh installation, and provide a visual bridge between the archive material and the various non-badge creations produced by the students that will also be exhibited.

The students spent time during the seminar drawing from the badges, and it was exciting to see some of our collections in a new light: as a source for artistic expression.