Summary - ARA Officers' day

Members of ALES may be interested in the summary of the recent ARA Officers' day in Birmingham. In particular, Laura Cotton is leading in the development of a handbook for ARA officers detailing job descriptions and other essential information for those interested in or actually taking on the roles. Suggestions for what information should be included are welcome...

http://www.archives.org.uk/latest-news/2013-ara-officers-day-takes-place-in-birmingham.html?utm_campaign=ARATodayissuethirtyfive&utm_source=Suite26&utm_medium=Email+Campaign

If you want to email suggestions to me at alison.diamond@nas.gov.uk, I will forward them to Laura.

Alison Diamond

ALES Chair

New Online Resources at National Records of Scotland

The education team at National Records of Scotland (NRS) is developing new online resources to support teachers and learners in the delivery of Curriculum for Excellence and National Qualifications.

Our approach is simple and straightforward: we wish to provide content that can be adapted by teachers to support different topics, themes and areas within the Scottish curriculum at different teaching levels. Our units will offer images of original sources, transcripts and background notes.

Three new resources are available at http://www.scottisharchivesforschools.org/indexPilotResources.asp. 

Please visit the resources and, if you have time, provide answers to the following questions by emailing education@nas.gov.uk .

Content and supporting text:

• Which units did you use?

• Is sufficient context provided to enable you to make full use of the resources?

• We have chosen to make complete documents available as far as possible, believing that students should encounter the whole source rather than just selected extracts. Do you agree with this approach?

• We are piloting both topic-based (eg. Scottish Suffagettes and The Great War) and thematic units (Letters and Diaries). Do you have a preference for either presentation and, if so, why?

Style and layout on screen:

• Are you able to navigate the units to identify sources? Do you have any comments on the style of the pages?

• Can you right click and save the images, and are they of sufficient quality for you to use them both electronically and in print form?

• If you are able to test the images on a smartboard, please do so and let us know of any technical problems you encounter opening or using them.

• We provide document transcriptions as printable Rich Text Format documents (rtfs). Are you able to access this type of file or would an alternative, eg. pdf, be preferable?

Your feedback will be really useful to us in developing our online service. Thank you for your time and assistance.

Sedburgh School Training Event

Sedbergh School is hosting a training event on May 16th. The event is aimed at School Archivists but may also be of use or interest to archivists working in small archives or those involved with creating education resources or exhibitions.

The Programme of events is as follows.

09.30       Refreshments will be available upstairs in Queens Hall

10.00       Welcome

10.05         Rachel Kneale: Cataloguing and Arranging in the School Archive Context

10.45       Katy Iliffe: Using Adult and Pupil volunteers in a School Archive

11.30       Paul Dyson: War Memorial Website

11.50       Pat Chandler: WW1: Preparing to commemorate the centenary

12.10       Group Discussion about WW1 commemorations

12.30       Lunch

13.10       Tour of the School Archive

13.30 David Clements: Archive Manager and Archive Browser. Cataloguing Software for a small archive

16.00 Departure

The cost is £10 which includes lunch and other refreshments through the day. Cheques payable to Sedbergh School Foundation. To book contact, Katy Iliffe of Sedbergh School Archive and Heritage Centre on 01539622275

Learning from Experience: How to Evaluate Education and Outreach Programmes and Develop Sustainable Outcomes

Archives for Learning and Education Section Training Event

Huntly Room,London Metropolitan Archives

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Do you want to know how successful your educational activity or workshop have been? Have you ever considered how to measure impact and embed sustainable learning outcomes in your outreach programme? Whether you run education and outreach activities on a shoe-string budget or whether you have the full works, this training event is for you.

Come and join our experienced panel of experts from the archive and museum sector for a day of practical sessions and exercises on how to evaluate education programmes and plan sustainable learning outcomes. Speakers include:

• Jan Pimblett, Principal Development Officer, London Metropolitan Archives
• Jane Avison, Heritage Learning Manager at Hull Cicy Council
• Joan Heggie, Research Fellow, Social Futures Institute, Teesside University

The event will be held at the Huntly Room in the London Metropolitan Archives: http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/archives-and-city-history/london-metropolitan-archives/visitor-information/Pages/default.aspx

Cost: £20 members, £25 non-members, including tea/coffee and buffet lunch.

To book a place at the conference please fill in the booking form below and send it to membership@archives.org.uk, or fax it to 01823 271719 or by post to the office address on the form: http://www.archives.org.uk/images/documents/ARA_Event_Booking_Form.doc

PROGRAMME

09:45 – 10:05            Registration and tea/coffee

10:05 – 10:15            Welcome and Introduction

10:15 – 11:15            Jan Pimblett, Principal Development Officer, London Metropolitan Archives

11:15 – 11:30            Tea/coffee break

11:30 – 12:30            Jane Avison, Heritage Learning Manager, Hull City Council

12:30 – 13:30            Lunch

13:30 – 14:30            Joan Heggie, Research Fellow, Social Futures Institute, Teesside University

14:30 – 14:45            Tea/coffee break

14:45 – 15:30            Round up session with speakers and delegates

15:30                          Final remarks and departure

15:30 – 16:30            ALES meeting

Update from ALES training event:evaluating projects

Those of you who were able to attend the ALES training event, Not just for the Children, in Hull last week will have heard Jane Avison’s interesting talk on evaluating projects. Jane focussed on four essential components to successful evaluation:
Listening to stakeholders’ requirements and speaking their language
Understanding what drives the stakeholders and being aware of what they need to achieve and how it will be measured
Setting clear boundaries so that partners know precisely who is doing what
Collecting the right evidence at the right time so that the project can be mapped from start to finish

In relation to the first of these components I would draw your attention to a new paper that has just been issued by Scottish Government: Strategic Guidance for Community Planning Partnerships: Community Learning and Development. It can be accessed as a pdf at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0039/00394611.pdf, and provides an introduction to the language that community events in Scotland will need to speak over the next few years.

Those of you who couldn’t make the conference – commiserations! But the papers will hopefully go up on the ALES pages of the ARA website (http://www.archives.org.uk/si-aelg/news-and-events.html ) in the near future.

Alison Diamond
Chair, ALES

School Pupils Create Their Own Archive

2012 is an important year for Livingston. April marked  50 years since the designation of Livingston as a new town.  The celebrations have provided West Lothian Archives with the opportunity to both celebrate and promote the recent history of the town.

Back in 2011, we started to think of ways in which the archive could permanently document this important year in Livingston’s history. We came up with the idea of creating an archive of Livingston life  in 2011-2012 and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to work with schools.  With that in mind, last August we went out to talk to local primary pupils about archives and to show them some of the archives material of the Livingston Development Corporation. Pupils were provided with archive boxes and were invited to start putting together their own archive of life in  Livingston. They started collecting pictures of school events, writing diaries and collecting other materials. Once pupils had collected the material, we went back out to visit the pupils to talk to them about archival appraisal. Pupils were then supported to go through the collected material, making appraisal decisions on what would form part of the finished archive. The material will shortly be transferred to the archives.  The pupils have really enjoyed working on the project and in doing so have become the creators of history. In fifty years time, we all hope that our new Livingston archive will form part of the Livingston 100 celebrations.

ALES Conference 2012: Not Just for the Children: Using Archives in Adult and Community Education

This year’s conference will focus on how archivists use their rich collections to engage with adult learners and community groups. The day will bring together an exciting mixture of speakers from across the UK and Ireland who will share their first hand experience and knowledge about a wide range of issues.

The conference will be held in the Lecture Theatre at the Hull History Centre on Monday 11 June.

For information about how to get to the Hull History Centre please follow this link: http://www.hullhistorycentre.org.uk/discover/hull_history_centre/visit_us/planning_your_visit/location.aspx

Cost: £70 for members, £85 non-members, including lunch and refreshments.

To book a place at the conference please fill in the booking form below and send it to membership@archives.org.uk, or fax it to 01823 271719 or by post to the office address on the form: http://www.archives.org.uk/images/documents/ARA_Event_Booking_Form.doc