Lancashire Archives & Local History

Written By Deborah Mason

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Reasons for Nomination

Lancashire Archives and Local History have had an exciting 18 months. Prompted by a review of functions across the service and an upcoming mid-stage accreditation review, the whole team at Lancashire have made significant progress in securing the long term development of the service and the collections in our care.

Following our last accreditation award in late 2020 the service was challenged with the need to develop several areas of our activity: respond robustly to the challenges of integration responsibility for library local studies collections; improve our digital preservation activities and renew engagement activities in a post-COVID environment.

Across the team the challenge has been met. Highlights from the last 18 months include:

  • Successful application to the National Lottery Heritage Fund for our Keeping East Lancashire in the Picture project, working alongside library colleagues and volunteers in four East Lancashire libraries to improve access to and conservation of historic photographic collections and establish new best practice methodologies for photographic collections care across the county (supported by the Friends of Lancashire Archives).

  • Integration of the management of Lancashire Library Local History collections into the archives structure, including securing two new posts to help develop the offer, establishing a training and Local History Champions programme across the library service and piloting new engagement projects, including partnership on the NLHF supported Clomping About project with Goofus Theatre.

  • Reorganisation of the Archives searchroom to make better use of space and acknowledge changing usage patterns and visitor needs, creating more space for volunteers to work in the searchroom, removing under-used microfilm infrastructure and creating a new exhibition space in partnership with Lancashire Museums. The programme to date has featured two temporary exhibitions, Shaping the Future: Lancashire Women's Lives, 1950-1980 and a new partnership with The National Football Museum to deliver Pride of the Pitch alongside an engagement and activity programme running to autumn 2024, and searchroom visitor figures show positive signs of recovery post-COVID.

  • Securing and implementing Preservica as the new digital preservation solution for the Archives and making progress in developing key internal relationships within the County Council to ensure a robust approach to digital preservation in the future; and working in partnership and thanks to the generous support of the Friends of Lancashire Archives to appoint a two-year collections assistant to help tackle outstanding cataloguing backlogs and make our collections more accessible.

  • Reaching a milestone of 100 volunteers engaged with the service on a regular basis and working across all parts of the team, from conservation volunteers cleaning National Coal Board miners' accident reports to engagement volunteers supporting our new Fun Palaces event and Christmas makers' market.

  • Launching our Clarets Collected project at Burnley Library, securing the future of a major private archive of records relating to Burnley Football Club and managing a cataloguing, volunteering and engagement project based at the library, with the support of private donations, the Friends of Lancashire Archives and the Know Your Neighbourhood funding scheme.

  • Embedding our History Is Here schools programme delivering tailored collections access to over 200 schools in Lancashire, and delivering over 30 school visits to the archives last year.

  • With the help of the Friends of Lancashire Archives, securing funding of £35,000 for new digitisation equipment and appointing a new Digitisation Technician to lead the development of our offer for researchers – and helping our Friends launch their new website.

  • Launching our new Lancashire local history magazine, Archives, celebrating the rich and diverse history of Lancashire and full of stories about the people, places and events that shaped the county, written by volunteers and researchers from around Lancashire. The magazine was awarded Highly Commended in the Alan Ball Award Best Local History Hardcopy Publication category for 2023.

Supporting evidence

Please see below a selection of links to the work detailed above. Individual images from activities can be provided if required.

Deborah Mason
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