ARA South East and London - Disaster response in archives, October 2023

At this event hosted by the ARA South East & London Region, two speakers will share their experiences of disaster response. Each talk will be followed by a Q&A session with our speakers.

Presentation 1: The Marx Memorial Library’s 2019 flood: a case study

Meirian Jump, Director of the Marx Memorial Library, will reflect on lessons learnt from the 2019 flood. Her presentation will cover the experience of using the MML’s disaster plan ‘in practice’, how this has shaped our approach since, and the transformative impact local partnerships and community support had on the outcomes of the disaster.

Presentation 2: Glasgow School of Art Archives & Collections Recovery Project

Following fires at the Glasgow School of Art in 2014 and 2018, a programme of conservation, digitisation, collection management and collection development work took place to stabilise and safeguard GSA’s Archives & Collections. Polly Christie will reflect on her experience of leading the recovery project from 2015-2021 and how this has shaped the collections and services since.

THE SPEAKERS

The Marx Memorial Library

Meirian Jump is an Archivist and is Director of the Marx Memorial Library where she has worked for almost a decade. She is currently managing the National Lottery Heritage Fund project ‘MML at 90: Enduring and Engaging’.

Glasgow School of Art

Polly Christie has worked in the arts sector since 2000, promoting the access and use of art and archive collections for teaching, learning and research, both to academic and general audiences. She worked for the Visual Arts Data Service, becoming Director in 2007; she established an Image Bank and then the Digitisation Unit for the University for the Creative Arts in 2009 and 2011 respectively, and then moved to Tate in 2012 to manage the Transforming Tate Britain: Archives & Access project until February 2015. Following the Archives and Collections Recovery Project Polly was appointed Archives and Collections Manager for Glasgow School of Art in 2022.