Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Placement Meeting
On Tuesday 28th April I met with Linda to talk about the placement, any other work that I could help with, and gain some further knowledge about NCLA and the Bloodaxe Archive for my report. We talked about doing more work for the website to see how it would be utilised from a student perspective, and we also discussed how they acquired the Bloodaxe Archive through the organisations relationship with the managing director of Bloodaxe Books, Neil Astley. This showed me how NCLA has a far reaching output in the creative community.
Newcastle Poetry Festival
From 19th- 21st March 2015, NCLA hosted the very first Newcastle Poetry Festival, an event that acted as the culmination of the 18 month project that was the archiving of the Bloodaxe Books material.
I worked the festival over Friday 20th and Saturday 21st. My role involved me helping Melanie Birch, the Marketing, Events and Postgraduate Administrator for the school of English, and who was instrumental in the organisation and running of the event. Within my role I acted as a port of call for visitors to the event, being on hand to give out any pre booked tickets to visitors as well being present at a stall for the event that displayed the Bloodaxe Archive book, as well as a variety of postcards relating to the archive. These items were for sale at the event, with my role involving enticing people to buy these products and handling monetary transactions. Below are examples of the products that I was responsible for selling.
My role within festival allowed me to build on my communication skills, as I had to continually engage with different visitors to the festival. It was also intriguing to see how such a large scale event was organised, with many student helpers being on hand throughout the festival, and the Northern Stage theatre acting as a highly suitable venue for the event. It was also interesting to talk with Mariana, who was holding a stall for Blackwells booksellers next to my stall and seeing the relationship that NCLA has with companies like Blackwells and how it is useful for both NCLA as a brand, and for companies like Blackwells in regards to selling merchandise.
More Cataloguing and Big Life Talk
On the 27th March I continued with my cataloguing of the Frederic Whyte letters, with this task being much easier to complete and know that I had done the correct work now that I had spent a solid amount of time on the task and had raised any questions that I may have at previous times.
I also arranged to have a conversation with Becky today about how she got into the archiving industry, as well as talk about graduate schemes, masters and working life in general. I decided to ask Becky for a chat as I felt I needed to start making some decisions about my life after university and wanted a good perspective from someone who could offer good advice.
It was interesting in talking to Becky in recognising the different career paths that are available and realising that even though I have spent many years now saying I don't know what I want to do with my life, it is still actually ok for me to say that, as I will eventually find a job that is suitable for me. It was also great to here about the pros and cons of moving straight into a masters, and the way that a degree is important within the job market today.
I also arranged to have a conversation with Becky today about how she got into the archiving industry, as well as talk about graduate schemes, masters and working life in general. I decided to ask Becky for a chat as I felt I needed to start making some decisions about my life after university and wanted a good perspective from someone who could offer good advice.
It was interesting in talking to Becky in recognising the different career paths that are available and realising that even though I have spent many years now saying I don't know what I want to do with my life, it is still actually ok for me to say that, as I will eventually find a job that is suitable for me. It was also great to here about the pros and cons of moving straight into a masters, and the way that a degree is important within the job market today.
Cataloguing of Letters
On Friday the 13th March I continued to work in the Special Collections department. This time my work involved cataloguing some letters from Frederic Whyte. This process involved me going through a number of letters and checking who writer was (in this case making sure it was Whyte), identifying the date the letter was written, and also going through the letter, reading it and providing a small commentary on the content and scope of the letter.
This work was exciting as it was my first experience of having real archival work, in the sense that we had come to Special Collections at the point why they were finishing work with the Bloodaxe Archive. The process of cataloguing the letters was slow to begin with as I had to get used to Whyte's writing style and decipher just what he was actually saying in the letter. Once I overcame this the task become simple and another example of quite a methodical way of working, which I enjoyed.
In cataloguing the letters I also learnt the importance of speaking up when you are unsure of things, as there were certain items in the letters and some things attached to the letters that it was necessary for me to double check with Becky, otherwise they would have been catalogued incorrectly.
This work was exciting as it was my first experience of having real archival work, in the sense that we had come to Special Collections at the point why they were finishing work with the Bloodaxe Archive. The process of cataloguing the letters was slow to begin with as I had to get used to Whyte's writing style and decipher just what he was actually saying in the letter. Once I overcame this the task become simple and another example of quite a methodical way of working, which I enjoyed.
In cataloguing the letters I also learnt the importance of speaking up when you are unsure of things, as there were certain items in the letters and some things attached to the letters that it was necessary for me to double check with Becky, otherwise they would have been catalogued incorrectly.
Checking Archive Links
On Friday 6th March I continued to work in the Special Collections department of the Robinson Libarary, working on the Bloodaxe Archive. My work this time involved going through a list of the different writers within the archive and writing an epithet for use in the archive, whilst also searching for other archive links from other archiving institutions. For example:
Surname Forename Date Epithet Other archive links
Padel Ruth 1946 a British poet, novelist and non-fiction author
This work, like my previous work with the archive, was quite a simple but methodical task that I had to check thoroughly to ensure that I didn't miss any links, and that the person that I was checking corresponded with the right information about that individual. This helped me to strengthen my skills of perception and quicken my understanding and acknowledgement of when I had done something wrong.
Surname Forename Date Epithet Other archive links
Padel Ruth 1946 a British poet, novelist and non-fiction author
This work, like my previous work with the archive, was quite a simple but methodical task that I had to check thoroughly to ensure that I didn't miss any links, and that the person that I was checking corresponded with the right information about that individual. This helped me to strengthen my skills of perception and quicken my understanding and acknowledgement of when I had done something wrong.
Website Cover Images and Further Archiving
In the week beginning February 23rd I helped in the organisation of cover images for various books that were being shown on the Bloodaxe Archive website. This work involved helping find the correlating cover images for works that were missing their cover images. This involved searching through a file of cover images making a spreadsheet attaching the id of each work to a filename. For example:
ID Filename
"BXB/1/1/GAF/1": BXB821-LORSEL-01.jpg
Although this seemed like it was a simple task, the actual carrying out of the task was more time consuming than I anticipated, as some filenames (cover images) were easier to find than others, and I had to check through all of the cover images thoroughly in order to sure that I had not missed any cover image out and that ones that I could not find were truly not in the system. This taught me that whilst you may anticipate work tasks to take you a certain amount of time to complete, you should always be prepared for certain tasks to take longer than you thought you would, with this being important in a job where you have to perform multiple tasks all the time.
This work was also useful in helping me with my communication and teamwork skills. This is because I divided the task between myself and my two fellow placement people, Hetty Touquet and Jodi Waterfield. This ensured that we roughly had the same amount of cover images to look for and that the task could be completed efficiently and thoroughly checked.
I also continued with the organisation of archive photos in this week, which further reinforced my idea that I would be happy with work in the future that involved me undertaking quite methodical tasks.
ID Filename
"BXB/1/1/GAF/1": BXB821-LORSEL-01.jpg
Although this seemed like it was a simple task, the actual carrying out of the task was more time consuming than I anticipated, as some filenames (cover images) were easier to find than others, and I had to check through all of the cover images thoroughly in order to sure that I had not missed any cover image out and that ones that I could not find were truly not in the system. This taught me that whilst you may anticipate work tasks to take you a certain amount of time to complete, you should always be prepared for certain tasks to take longer than you thought you would, with this being important in a job where you have to perform multiple tasks all the time.
This work was also useful in helping me with my communication and teamwork skills. This is because I divided the task between myself and my two fellow placement people, Hetty Touquet and Jodi Waterfield. This ensured that we roughly had the same amount of cover images to look for and that the task could be completed efficiently and thoroughly checked.
I also continued with the organisation of archive photos in this week, which further reinforced my idea that I would be happy with work in the future that involved me undertaking quite methodical tasks.
Starting My Work Placement
On the week beginning Monday 16th I started my NCLA placement. I met with Linda and talked with her about what NCLA were currently working on . This involved their big project of archiving all the Bloodaxe Books material after acquiring the rights. Linda showed me the website relating to the Bloodaxe work and told us that she would speak with her colleague Tom Schofield as he had some tasks relating to the website which he would need our help on.
On the Friday of this week I also met with Rebecca Bradley, an archivist working in the Robinson Library. Through Linda we arranged that I would help Rebecca with the Bloodaxe Archive in terms of gaining experience from the traditional side of the archiving process.
Working in the special collections section of the Robinson Library was beneficial for me as I have not had a lot of experience of working in a real working environment. I feel that having been in the office it helped me to learn that I would potentially enjoy working in a traditional office environment over a job where I might move around a lot or work outdoors.
My work with the archive involved helping to file the photographs of each of the authors that were used in the archive. I ensured that each photograph was filed into a grey box, ensuring that each photograph was placed into a polythene protective sheet to preserve it, as well as ensuring that each photograph was packaged away with a duplicate photograph.
I enjoyed this task as it was quite methodical and gave me a sense of purpose, suggesting to me that I would quite like working in a methodical way in the future.
It was also really interesting and intriguing for me to speak with Rebecca a little about what was involved in archiving and the different kind of archiving jobs that she has had in the past. When someone has said to me the word archive/archiving in the past, I have immediately just thought of a collection in a library, used by a school or university. However, in speaking to Rebecca, I realised that a lot of archiving goes on in business sectors, as Rebecca has previously worked for various companies such as Unilever. This definitely opened up my mind to what archiving both entails and who has a need for it, and it made me think about how more traditional businesses do need help in terms of more creative outlets and ensuring that there work can be catalogued for future reference.
On the Friday of this week I also met with Rebecca Bradley, an archivist working in the Robinson Library. Through Linda we arranged that I would help Rebecca with the Bloodaxe Archive in terms of gaining experience from the traditional side of the archiving process.
Working in the special collections section of the Robinson Library was beneficial for me as I have not had a lot of experience of working in a real working environment. I feel that having been in the office it helped me to learn that I would potentially enjoy working in a traditional office environment over a job where I might move around a lot or work outdoors.
My work with the archive involved helping to file the photographs of each of the authors that were used in the archive. I ensured that each photograph was filed into a grey box, ensuring that each photograph was placed into a polythene protective sheet to preserve it, as well as ensuring that each photograph was packaged away with a duplicate photograph.
I enjoyed this task as it was quite methodical and gave me a sense of purpose, suggesting to me that I would quite like working in a methodical way in the future.
It was also really interesting and intriguing for me to speak with Rebecca a little about what was involved in archiving and the different kind of archiving jobs that she has had in the past. When someone has said to me the word archive/archiving in the past, I have immediately just thought of a collection in a library, used by a school or university. However, in speaking to Rebecca, I realised that a lot of archiving goes on in business sectors, as Rebecca has previously worked for various companies such as Unilever. This definitely opened up my mind to what archiving both entails and who has a need for it, and it made me think about how more traditional businesses do need help in terms of more creative outlets and ensuring that there work can be catalogued for future reference.
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