University of Nottingham, Manuscripts & Special Collections

Written By Deborah Mason

Name of nominated conservation, archive or records management service/team for Record Keeping Service of the Year Award 2022 : University of Nottingham, Manuscripts and Special Collections

From the Nomination Form

Reasons for nomination:

The University of Nottingham has been collecting manuscripts since the 1930s. Today, Manuscripts and Special Collections (MSC) holds more than 3.5 million manuscripts in over 700 archive collections and 80,000 printed items. Three collections have been Designated as being of outstanding national and international importance and MSC is an Accredited archive service. In difficult circumstances MSC has made substantial progress during the last 18 months across a range of services and activities due to the hard work and dedication of its amazing staff.

1. Public Services and the pandemic

Reading room

Post lockdown staff reopened the service in September 2020 and as University Libraries were considered an essential service kept the Reading room open through subsequent lockdowns, moving from three days per week and a lunchtime closure back to four days per week 9.30-6.00pm in October 2021. Staff showed sensitivity to colleagues who were more cautious about returning to campus and developed extensive Risk Assessments and Standard Operating Procedures to reassure both staff and readers. This continuity of service was much appreciated by students, academics and the public.

Vaccination centre

MSC also had to modify procedures as they were sharing the building with a major NHS Vaccination Centre during 2021.

Virtual reading room and classroom

MSC has trialled a virtual reading room and classroom service using a visualiser to facilitate improved access to remote users especially those unable to travel from abroad. https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/readingroom/introduction.aspx (Link to video introduction under Facilities and resources)

2. Projects

MSC has successfully run three externally funded projects during this period:

‘Unlocking the DH Lawrence Collection: cataloguing and digitisation for research and display’, a 2-year project funded by the Arts Council England Designation Development Fund (the first time this grant stream has been opened beyond museums)

  • Cataloguing and preservation of two Lawrence related collections: Correspondence files and papers relating to The Cambridge Edition of the Letters and Works of DH Lawrence, 1968-2002 and the Papers of Dr James T Boulton (1924-2013) editor of the Cambridge University Press Letters and general editor of the DH Lawrence Works, 1967-c.2002

CUP: https://mss- cat.nottingham.ac.uk/Calmview/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=La%2fE Boulton: https://mss- cat.nottingham.ac.uk/Calmview/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=La%2fR%2f2

  • Digitisation of 797 Lawrence literary manuscripts, letters, proofs and art works (11,167 images) and production of digital galleries on Lawrence and the University of

Nottingham, Lawrence’s fiction and Lawrence’s artwork https://nusearch.nottingham.ac.uk/primo- explore/collectionDiscovery?vid=44NOTUK&collectionId=81201433480005561

 

‘Advocates of Animal Welfare: uncovering the archives’, cataloguing and preservation of three Animal Welfare related collections, an 18-month project funded by a private donation

 

‘Conservation and digitisation of the papers of the Nottingham architect TC Hine (1813-1899)’, a 9-month project funded by the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust

https://www.nmct.co.uk/sites/default/files/2021-06/nmct_ar_2020.pdf page14

See gallery below for images.

3.  Grants for acquisitions

MSC received grants from the Arts Council England/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of the National Libraries to purchase a letter and eight postcards from DH Lawrence to members of his family. These were added to the designated D H Lawrence collection.

See gallery below for images. 

4.  Digital Preservation

Over the last five years, MSC has taken significant steps forward to develop and secure its digital collections, including recruitment of specialist staff and the procurement of a digital preservation system to support the implementation of its digital preservation policy which was reviewed and revised last year. The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) Rapid Assessment Model returns demonstrate substantial progress between July 2019 and May 2022.

MSC digital collection items, both digitised and born digital, are now stored and managed in OAIS (Open Archival Information Systems) compliant digital preservation software and storage (Preservica). Standardised procedures for processing digital collections have been developed and implemented and in house training provided for staff to help embed the use of internal tools as well as supporting staff to complete external digital preservation training such as Novice to Know How.

MSC has made use of new functionality and tools to establish the collection of newer types of digital content for the Special Collections including digital publications and websites and proactively documented the University’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Preservica has been successfully integrated with other in-house collection management systems including Portfolio and CALM and work is underway in developing an improved end user access experience.

MSC has continued to contribute to the digital preservation community - sitting on the DPC Research and Practice Sub Committee until January 2022; pushing product development within the Preservica community; and taking the lead in developing a cross institutional Midland's peer support network for staff with digital preservation responsibilities (MiDiPres).

See gallery below for images.

5.  Partnerships

MSC has made progress with two partnerships which had been delayed by the pandemic:

Theatre Royal

The University, and the School of English in particular, have been working in partnership with Nottingham’s Theatre Royal and Royal Concert Hall on various heritage projects over a number of years. MSC have been involved with the recruitment and training of their team of heritage volunteers, providing training in cataloguing, preservation and digitisation. The original archive

project concentrated on the Theatre Royal archives and, following discussion, the decision was made to donate the collection to the University, where MSC could provide secure and environmentally controlled storage and make it available to researchers. The transfer was all planned to take place in April 2020 but was delayed by the pandemic until November 2022. MSC is now starting to repackage the archives and migrate the catalogue spreadsheet to CALM so that the collection can be made accessible to researchers. The heritage volunteers are now working on the Royal Concert Hall archives which will be transferred to MSC in due course.

Feminist Archive East Midlands

Another partnership which has made substantial progress over the last year is with the Nottingham Women’s History Group to create an East Midlands Feminist Archive. MSC worked with the group to put together a successful application to The National Archives for a Scoping grant. The consultant appointed produced a report providing an overview of the collections and their significance and recommendations for future development. Although again delayed by Covid, the collections have now been transferred to MSC and a team of dedicated volunteers are busily sorting and cataloguing the papers.

https://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscripts/2022/02/25/feminist-archive-east-midlands-at-the- university-of-nottingham/

See gallery below for images
MSC is in the advanced planning stages to co-host a conference on 6 Sep 2022 with The National Archives to celebrate the centenary of the Law of Property Act, 1922 and the conclusion of a 30-year project to revise and computerise the Manorial Documents Register.

6.  Collections Management

  • A new Hanwell environmental monitoring system was installed to monitor conditions in the store, isolation room and in the Weston Gallery

  • A substantially revised disaster plan was produced

7.  REF impact

In the University's submission for the Research Excellence Framework 2021, MSC was involved in three Impact Case studies which helped the University to achieve improved results

 8.  Exhibition programme

Once Lakeside Arts re-opened MSC has mounted three exhibitions at the Weston Gallery, Lakeside Arts supported by a programme of Lunchtime talks, Gallery tours, Film screenings and activities.

An online version of each exhibition has also been produced:

‘Florence Nightingale Comes Home’ 17 May 2021-5 Sep 2021 (part of an Arts and Humanities Research Council project) https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/exhibitions/online/florence- nightingale/index.aspx

‘Beyond the Mayflower’ 23 Sep 2021- 16 Jan 2022 https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/exhibitions/online/beyond- the-mayflower/index.aspx

‘Editing DH Lawrence’ 3 Feb-29 May 2022 (part of an Arts Council project- see above) https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/exhibitions/online/editing-

dh-lawrence/index.aspx

See gallery below for images.

The Gallery was also refurbished, and new wheelchair accessible cases purchased.

9.  Students and outreach

Online and in person classes have been given to students in the Graduate School, English, History, Liberal Arts and Music and ten student placements offered in each academic year. MSC has also given virtual and face to face talks to local community groups and participated in the Heritage Open Days and the University’s History festival.

10.   University of Nottingham Museum of Archaeology

Since January 2020 MSC has taken on responsibility for the University Museum. Alongside museum colleagues MSC staff have been involved in the planning of a major British Museum exhibition ‘Ancient Iraq: New discoveries’ which the Museum hosted from 26 March-19 June 2022, with a supporting programme of Talks, Curator tours, Music events and Children’s activities.

Supporting evidence of service delivery excellence (list and attach all/any reports, images, testimony, URLs etc.):

  • Digital Preservation progress

  • Amount of content preserved in Preservica:

    • 12 terabytes

    • 140,890 files (including access representations)

    • Number of media assets processed:

(see graphics below)

  • Theatre Royal Collection arriving at Manuscripts and Special Collections (see below)

  • Images of Feminist Archive volunteers at work (see below)

  • Images of Florence Nightingale Comes Home, Beyond the Mayflower and Editing DH Lawrence exhibitions (see below)

You can find all nominees for ARA’s Excellence Awards here

You can vote here. Voting closes on 8th July 2022

Deborah Mason
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