Aimy Stevens

‍Nomination: ‍

Aimy became Edge Hill University’s Level 7 Archive Apprentice in September 2024. A background in film and television work and the mum of four young children, Aimy has embraced the opportunity the apprenticeship has provide her, excelling in her studies and the work she has undertaken in her role.

‍Prior to the Apprenticeship, Aimy had applied to the Liverpool MA Archives and Records Management (MARM) course, but wasn’t offered a place that year because of her lack of experience. However, seeing her potential, Liverpool offered her a place on their widening participation programme, which supports potential applicants who face structural challenges to meeting the experience requirements. She undertook the programme and was then offered a place (and a scholarship) on MARM the following year, but instead chose the apprenticeship route, recognising that the combination of paid employment and on-the-job training was more suitable for her, a decision which all parties agreed was for the best.

‍Aimy consistently challenges herself and approaches any aspect of work that causes her difficulty or concern as something she will overcome and turn into a new skill. A typical example of her tenaciousness is that she had never passed her Level 2 Maths, a subject she always struggled with at school and was aware this might be a barrier in the future. She took it upon herself to enrol in evening classes and was delighted when she manged to pass the qualification first time. She has been central to the transformation of the work of the archive service and to our ambitions for the future. Her incredible diligence, attention to detail, tenacity, passion for the profession and creativity have marked her out as an aspiring Archivist of exceptional talent. As her colleague and manager, I know that our archive service is very fortunate to have Aimy’s skills and enthusiasm pushing us to previously unrealised levels of innovation and achievement. Summarising all of Aimy’s achievements is no easy task, so I have provided here a list of just some of them – all remarkable achievements for someone who isn’t yet a qualified Archivist and had never been in a paid role with archives, libraries or other information service prior to the start of her apprenticeship.

‍
Won the Highly Commended award as a Level 7 Archives and Records Management Apprentice, National Apprenticeship Awards, February 2026.
Took the lead on developing and populating our first ever Digital Asset Register
Fully catalogued two very different archive collections. One of these is a highly complex collection of records relating to national disasters and tragedies, with a particular focus on the Hillsborough football stadium disaster – a tragedy that holds particular significance for people in our region. Aimy had to navigate a wide variety of record types while also taking care of her own mental health and wellbeing as she worked through incredibly challenging documents. When academics in Critical Criminology heard about Aimy’s work, they decided to place the collection at the centre of the department’s 40th anniversary celebrations later this year, when we will also make the collection available for public research.
Aimy accessioned and is now cataloguing the collection of a major British film director and as a part of this has been at the forefront of working alongside the director’s family to develop strategies for preserving the collection, allowing access, while also protecting, and restricting access to, the many examples of sensitive information that are scattered throughout the records.
Aimy oversaw and managed the digitisation of various audio cassettes that had long been untouched in the archive collection. She reached out to third party organisations to arrange the work and then used the opportunity to shadow the process of digitisation.
As well as helping to catalogue the archive of internationally acclaimed filmmaker, Terence Davies, she has also been actively involved in supporting related activities, including the creation and deconstruction of an exhibition of items we staged as part of a major Terence Davies retrospective at the British Film Institute, London, in November 2026. Aimy has also gained valuable experience by taking part in progress review meetings with the donors of this major collection.
Aimy took part in a panel session as part of the ARA Conference 2025 (the first archive conference she had attended). She will be delivering a paper on her work with the disasters and tragedies collection at the 2026 ARA Conference and is also speaking about the filmmaker collections we hold at the 2026 Arlis Conference in July 2026. Not bad for someone who told me one of her greatest fears was public speaking when we first met!
Aimy is always keen to give something back to the sector that she has fallen in love with and has done this through volunteering with a number of groups and networks. She is communications officer for The Archive Group (TAG, Liverpool City Region’s Archive Network); part of the ARA New Professionals Committee; she has been producing brand new podcasts for Explore Your Archives and has been part of the planning committee for the 2026 ARA Conference. On top of all this, she is also the archive service’s representative on our department’s communications group, producing social media activity that celebrates and promotes the archive to students, staff and the wider public.

Additional information:

Aimy’s profile on the Westminster Adult Education Service (WAES, the Apprenticeship Training Provider) website: https://www.waes.ac.uk/testimonial/aimy-stevens/

‍CILIP article on apprenticeships featuring Aimy: Apprentice success delivers a diverse workforce - CILIP: the library and information association

Explore Your Archive page about the upcoming series of podcasts which Aimy has been involved in: Podcast: the people who work in and with archives

One of the many Instagram reels Aimy has made about the archive service: Instagram

Aimy’s LinkedIn profile where she often posts about her work: Aimy Stevens | LinkedIn

‍