Explore Your Archive is coming soon!

Explore Your Archive focus week is back - this year starting on Monday 28th November and running to Tuesday 6th December.

Archives are full of wonderful and intriguing things. Explore Your Archive focus week is an opportunity for archive services across the UK and Ireland to share their treasures with the public through this well-established social media campaign. Last year over 400 organisations took part.

This year the Archives and Records Association, who run the campaign, are also inviting the UK public to get involved. Members of the public can post images from their own ‘archives’ along with the daily themes and, as a finale to the week, Your Archive is the last daily theme – handing over the social media feed to anyone who has some intriguing old photos, diaries, albums, letters or other interesting historical items in their own ‘collection’ to share.

They are also running a number of free events for the public to find out from experts how they can get the best out of archives for their own research, whether that’s into family history, local history or that of marginalised communities. There will also be an insight into the work of archive conservators who can also give tips on how to keep your own treasures safe at home.

Celebrity Champion – Gyles Brandreth

This year they are also pleased to introduce their first Celebrity Champion for the UK – Gyles Brandreth – Gyles is well known as an author and broadcaster and for his love of history.

He says:

“I’m thrilled to be the first UK Explore Your Archive champion. Archives are wonderful places and I’ve spent a lot of time in them researching. It’s very easy to get side-tracked by all the intriguing stories they contain and this campaign is a great way of discovering just a tiny fraction of what archives have to offer. Most of us also keep a little (or large) archive of our own and Explore Your Archive is encouraging the public to get involved and share their own treasures on social media. Archives keep the culture and history of our country safe for future generations so it’s really important that we should all be involved.”

Gyles even has his own archive of teddy bears at Newby Hall.

With their appetites whetted for more, the public will also be able to enjoy a series of podcasts about archives and the wonders they contain. The “Outside the Box” podcast series will launch its first ten-part series at the end of Explore Your Archive focus week. A wide range of archives are explored in the series from the Parliamentary Archive to the Circus and Fairground Archive and from Riverside Studios to the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive - each one has fascinating stories to tell.

The daily social media themes for Explore Your Archive Focus week are:
 
Monday 28th November - Maps and Plans
Tuesday 29th November - Time
Wednesday 30th November - Beards (referencing Movember)
Thursday 1st December - Throwback (referencing Throwback Thursday)
Friday 2nd December - Party
Saturday 3rd December - News
Sunday 4th December - Language
Monday 5th December - Humour
Tuesday 6th December - Your Archive - inviting the public to share their own treasures. 

Follow:

@explorearchives on twitter

@exploreyourarchives on Facebook

And

@exploreyourarchive on Instagram

And the hashtags #ExploreYourArchive / #EYAWeek

Events programme

28th November – 6pm – 730pm online event

This event will feature Nick Barratt, family history expert and one of the original researchers behind the well-known television programme Who Do You Think You Are. He will be joined by Alan Butler from Pride in Plymouth, Alan is also chair of the Community Archives and Heritage Group of the Archives and Records Association and will share his experience of researching LGBTQI+ history in Plymouth and creating new materials to add to and extend the archive – ensuring that future history will be more representative. They will be joined by Victoria Stevens, an archive and library conservator with over 20 years’ experience, who will help answer questions about how to keep your own precious treasures safe from harm.

Booking via Eventbrite

2nd December 2-430pm Conwy Archive Service,

Presentations on Conservation, Family History, and Diversity and Inclusion. Attendees will also be given a tour of the archives. 

Refreshments provided.

2nd December 630-830pm Glasgow Women’s Library

This event at the Glasgow Women’s Library will include a tour of the collections and a talk about their collections and how they can be accessed. National Records Scotland will also give a talk on how to use NRS to start your family history journey.

6th December 2-430pm Carmarthenshire Archives

Presentations on Conservation, Family History, and Diversity and Inclusion. Attendees will also be given a tour of the archives. 

Refreshments provided.

Full details of these events and booking information will be available shortly on the Explore Your Archive website here https://www.exploreyourarchive.org/celebrating/

Other local events for Explore Your Archive week will also be advertised on this page.

About Explore Your Archive

The campaign, which was first established in 2014, is an all-year-round initiative which aims to engage with the general public to showcase the richness and variety within archives and demonstrate why they are relevant to our world today, what they can tell us and how they can entertain us.

The goals of Explore Your Archive are to encourage the public to explore archives and to urge archivists, records managers, conservators, researchers and lovers of archives of all kinds to share their experience and promote their collections and work throughout the year and particularly during Explore Your Archive week.

Each year the Explore Your Archive week of activities sets a daily theme and encourages archives around the UK and Ireland (and further afield) to post to those themes. The public can engage via the hashtag #ExploreYourArchive and find theme related content for each of the specific days.

Explore Your Archive is on the three main social media platforms:

Twitter: @explorearchives

Instagram @exploreyourarchive

Facebook @ExploreYourArchives

The website provides additional resources and a host of fascinating blogs from archives across the UK and Ireland https://www.exploreyourarchive.org/discovering/

The campaign is managed and led by a team of people working in the archives and record-keeping sector who give their time to the initiative on a voluntary basis. Karyn Williamson has been leading the project for a number of years and she says:

“This project is so important to me. I really believe that archives are for everyone and I am keen to encourage my colleagues in the sector to show off the treasures they are keeping safe for us all. I think the public are becoming more aware of the value of archives through TV programmes such as House Through Time, Secret Scotland and Who Do You Think You Are and can see that archives have a really wide variety of purposes and a real value to the general public. Public engagement programmes and ongoing acquisition strategies also mean that archives aren’t just for ‘old stuff’ and many archives work with local communities to ensure that the voices of the present are saved for future historians. I hope everyone will get involved with #ExploreYourArchive week and enjoy the wonderful things the sector has to offer”

About Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, actor, former MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, now Chancellor of the University of Chester and one of Britain's most sought-after award ceremony hosts and after-dinner speakers. A star of Celebrity Gogglebox, a veteran of QI and Have I Got News For You, a reporter on The One Show, a regular on This Morning, and for many years one of the stars of Just a Minute BBC Radio 4, his many books include nine detective novels (among them The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries), biographies (notably Philip: The Final Portrait) and three recent best-sellers: The 7 Secrets of Happiness; his celebration of good English, punctuation, spelling and grammar, Have You Eaten Grandma?; and his anthology of poetry to learn by heart, Dancing by the Light of the Moon.  In 2021/22, pandemic permitting, he is appearing on stage with Dame Judi Dench at the Bridge Theatre, on TV with Sheila Hancock in Great Canal Journeys, and on tour throughout the country with his one-man show, Break a Leg!  He presents a weekly podcast with Susie Dent about words: Something Rhymes With Purple - Best Entertainment Podcast at the British Podcast Awards, 2020.  His latest book is The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes.  His autobiography, Odd Boy Out, published in September 2021, became an immediate Sunday Times and Amazon Top Ten best-seller.  More information on Gyles is available here https://www.gylesbrandreth.net/

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