Volunteering at your Local Archive Service
Emma Jones and Bleddyn Smith will be studying for a postgraduate qualification in Archives and Records Management at Aberystwyth University in September. Here they share their experiences of volunteering at the Carmarthenshire Archives.
We’re excited to be writing about our work experience placement at Carmarthenshire Archives and how it will help to support our future career development. Hopefully, our observations will help to inform and encourage others who are currently thinking about entering the profession.
As with other sectors, getting some real-life work experience is the best way to understand what it is like to work as an archivist. So, before embarking upon our academic studies, we were keen to get a first-person look into the day-to-day running of a local authority archive service. To this end, we decided to volunteer at the Carmarthenshire Archives.
Carmarthenshire Archives is located in the town of Carmarthen and is staffed by a small team of dedicated professionals. It was obvious from the start that an archive service is a great place to volunteer. We discovered that there are many ways to get involved with opportunities available for everyone, whatever age, experience, or amount of time to give.
For example, during our placement, we were able to help visitors with their family history research; clean and repackage archive documents; and digitise archive collections. As part of our pre-course training, we were also able to assist in the cataloguing of a small collection of 19th century title deeds.
Working together, we had to interpret the documents, work out what type of deeds we were dealing with, who the important parties were, and the significance of the places involved. At times, the gaps in our knowledge became apparent, however, we were taught how to identify the different examples, and what resources we could use to aid the identification process. The guidance provided by the archivist really highlighted the importance of the placement.
Besides cataloguing, we learnt that the role of an archivist includes many other duties, such as answering enquiries, supervising the search room, assisting researchers, using the strong room to locate documents, and ensuring the long-term preservation of documents by carefully encapsulating and boxing items and removing rusty paper clips and staples.
During our placement we encountered many different types of documents in a wide range of formats and we both have our own personal favourites:
“For me (Emma,) the item that I remember the fondest was the food inventory turned-diary in an old notebook. As I was reading it, I noticed that the owner had drawn a small picture of a comet and written a little about it. Using the context clues and other dates left in the diary, I came to the conclusion that the comet was likely Comet Donati, the first comet ever photographed, drawn in this inconspicuous notebook.”
“So far, my (Bleddyn) favourite item that I have come across has been a diploma from Aberystwyth University in dairy-making from 1913! It was awarded to a young woman named Maggie Jones, who received a first-class qualification for completing a ten-week course in dairy-making. I found this fascinating, as I (like many of our volunteers), will go on to study at Aberystwyth, therefore it is an interesting little insight into the types of courses they offered at Aberystwyth in 1913. We also hold Maggie’s 1913 recipe book for cheese recipes and a photo of her class, which gives a fascinating little insight into what life was like as a student from rural Wales, at the start of the twentieth century”.
To conclude, if you are looking to gain some valuable work experience whether it be for pre-course training or just a desire to get involved, volunteering at your local archive is a great idea. Our placements have been wonderful, and we can honestly say that working with a friendly team of archivists has provided us with a better understanding of the knowledge and skills required to succeed in the field.