London

Next HARG meeting at the Royal College of Nursing, 30 May 2019

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The next meeting of the Health Archives and Records Group on Thursday the 30th May between 3-5.30pm.

The meeting will take place simultaneously in the Sarah Swift Room (G01) at the Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, Marylebone, London, W1G 0RN and thanks to the video-conferencing facilities, it will be possible for HARG members based in the North of England and Scotland to participate in the meeting by joining HARG members at the RCN office at 42 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh, EH9 2HH.

20 Cavendish Square is located behind John Lewis, Oxford Street. The nearest tube stations are Oxford Circus and Bond Street. There are many buses routes that stop nearby, including the 10, 25, 55, 73, 98 and 390.

42 South Oswald Road is located in the Grange area south of Edinburgh city centre. The closest bus route is the 41 from near Waverly train station. Morningside is within easy walking distance and is reached by the 11, 15, 16 and 23 from Princes Street.

The meeting will include updates on group activities and planned events, health sector news and a forum to discuss member’s issues. You can download the minutes of the previous meeting on our website, here.

Please email archives@rcn.org.uk to confirm your attendance and state the venue you would like to attend. The meeting is open to all but spaces are limited.

London

Upcoming Health Archives and Records Group AGM, London Metropolitan Archives, Friday 7 December 2018

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The next Health Archives and Records Group meeting will be held at the London Metropolitan Archives on 7 December 2018, 2-4.30pm. The afternoon session will include a presentation by the NHS at 70 team and a talk on the new exhibition, Child Health in London, at the London Metropolitan Archives.

Prior to the group meeting there will also be an opportunity in the morning to meet three digital preservation software vendors, Arkivum, Max Communications and Preservica to hear in-depth presentations and demonstrations of their products and answering specific questions about cost, installation and ongoing support costs. This session is scheduled from 10.30am-1pm.

Please see the agenda below. If you are interested in attending either the morning or the afternoon please email: christopher.olver@kcl.ac.uk to confirm your attendance and which session you would be interested in attending.

 

Health Archives and Records Group Annual General Meeting

Friday 7 December 2018, 2-4.30pm

London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Rd, Clerkenwell, London EC1R 0HB

  1. 14:00: Welcome and introductions
  2. 14.00-14.25: Talk on Collaborative Guidance. Speaker: Caroline Simpson (National Archives)
  3. 14.25-14.50: Appii demonstration: a system for verified credentials using Blockchain technology and its applications for students and employers. Speaker: (Gary McKay, Appii)
  4. 14.50-15.15: NHS at 70 project: Speakers: Angela Whitecross and Peter Mitchell (both University of Manchester)
  5. 15.15-15.20: Minutes and matters arising relating to last meeting
  6. 15:20-15:35: HARG Committee report (Administration, website, events, plans for 2019)
  7. 15.35-15.55: National Archives health sector update
  8. 15:55-16:15: Open forum/sector and partner news
  9. 16:15-16:30: Optional guided tour of child health exhibition
  10. 16:30: Close.

 

 

Guest Post

‘Approaches to Opening Up Medical Archives’ and welcome to the Wellcome-funded projects group blog post for HARG

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Victoria Haddock, Wellcome Project Conservator, Boots Archive

The professional seminar ‘Approaches to Opening Up Medical Archives’ hosted at London Metropolitan Archives on 19 January 2018 was an insightful collection of talks around the project management and conservation of two important collections: the Foundling Hospital medical records at LMA and those of the St. Mark’s Hospital Archives held by St. Bartholomew’s Archive. Both projects have received funding from the Wellcome Trust Resource Resources awards to enable their conservation and cataloguing, with the aim of opening up access to these collections – whether by allowing them to be a in a more stable condition to be viewed, or to be digitised.

The Foundling Hospital project at LMA focused on a distinct subset of the Foundling collection which was unfit for consultation and required much-needed treatment to enable it to be digitised safely. In addition to this the LMA was successful in its application for a public engagement fund which will allow a year-long programme of events to link in with the project including an academic conference, events for schools and an exhibition.

The St. Marks collection is over 50 linear metres of archival items which all require full cataloguing, which will begin in February 2018. Their conservation has been worked on since July 2017 by their project conservator, who gave an insightful talk on her approach to working on such a large collection. The usefulness of having the time to thoughtfully and accurately survey a collection was detailed along with an interesting example of the development of stationery bindings from the mid-nineteenth century.

Both were great examples of the variety of challenges that may happen during these kinds of projects and we all got the chance to see some fantastic examples of the conservation work done by the conservators on these projects, from full rebinding examples to more minimal preventive approaches such as bespoke book jackets.

It was a great morning to hear about these projects and sparked many questions and debates. It was also a really great opportunity to meet others in similar situations who have the same sort of issues to confront within medical archives.

The timing of this event was also fortuitous as recently a group has been set up in the hope to connect previous and current conservators and archivists that have worked on short-term projects funded by the Wellcome. Since beginning work on a rehousing project at the Boots archive, Nottingham, in January 2017, I was struck by how many projects similar to mine had been funded by the Wellcome Trust. But there was nothing out there to tell us where we all were and no central body linking us together, even though we were all linked by the Wellcome’s funding and the fact that we are all medical, pharmaceutical or scientifically based archives. This struck me as a wasted opportunity for collaboration as many of us may have been facing the same kinds of challenges and there might have been someone else who has found the answer already and may be able to share this experience.

Personally, as an emerging conservator who has only recently graduated, I was struggling with the context of the project I was working on being the only conservator – and the first and only conservator the archive had ever had – and so was faced with a lot of responsibilities and decisions to make without having that opportunity to consult with a team of conservators with greater experience than me, that others might have in a different institution. But I also discovered mine was not an unusual case at all, there being many conservators out there with short-term project based work being one of their first ‘proper’ jobs after graduating from a postgraduate qualification or similar.

So this led me to begin drawing together a network of conservators, archivists and others, who were currently or had previously worked on projects such as mine. It has been initially a closed group on Facebook and an emailing list. After the event in the morning those of us that wanted to meet up to discuss the group were able to do so by the kind offer of a meeting space at LMA.

Many topics were discussed such as what we want to do with the group, how best to do this, what kind of information do we want to share such as project reports, as well as shorter blogs or images to show what we are working on, and are there any skills or training we would like to get that would benefit us a group and our particular situations. To be honest we only just touched the tip of the iceberg!

Many more thought-provoking topics were raised such as the general nature of project work from both the perspectives of those working on projects and those hiring for and managing those projects, how case studies and reports about Wellcome funded projects are not made available for those thinking of applying for funding, or those currently in that process to give applicants a greater understanding of the nature and scale of what conservation projects might become, and also how archivists and conservators could and should be working together in partnership.

This is just the beginning of what I hope to be a really useful network for people working on short term projects that want to have a place to voice their questions, successes and feel part of a wider supportive community.

If you have any questions about the group or would like to join the mailing list please email victoria.haddock@boots.co.uk.

Meetings

Next HARG General Meeting, Royal College of Nursing, 15 March 2018

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You are invited to attend the next meeting of the Health and Records Group on Thursday the 15th March between 2-4.30pm.

 

The meeting will take place simultaneously in the Sarah Swift Room (G01) at the Royal College of Nursing, 20 Cavendish Square, Marylebone, London, W1G 0RN and thanks to the video-conferencing facilities at the RCN, it will be possible for HARG members based in the North of England and Scotland to participate in the meeting by joining HARG members at the RCN office at 42 South Oswald Road, Edinburgh, EH9 2HH.

 

20 Cavendish Square is located behind John Lewis, Oxford Street. The nearest tube stations are Oxford Circus and Bond Street. There are many buses routes that stop nearby, including the 10, 25, 55, 73, 98 and 390.

42 South Oswald Road is located in the Grange area south of Edinburgh city centre. The closest bus route is the 41 from near Waverly train station. Morningside is within easy walking distance and is reached by the 11, 15, 16 and 23 from Princes Street.

 

The meeting will include updates on group activities and planned events, health sector news, including Scottish archivist’s NHS Group along with to be confirmed guest presentations.

 

Please email archives@rcn.org.uk to confirm your attendance and state the venue you would like to attend. The meeting is open to all but spaces are limited. A full agenda will be circulated closer to the meeting.

 

After the London meeting you are welcome to view the exhibition on the ground floor of the RCN Library & Heritage Centre where there is also a café. At 5.30pm the Royal College of Nursing History of Nursing Society Annual Lecture takes place at the venue. This year it will be given by Prof Joanna Bourke. Professor Bourke is an expert on social and cultural history. Over the years, she has worked on the history of the emotions, particularly fear and hatred, and the history of sexual violence. Most recently, her research has focussed on questions of humanity, militarisation, and pain, and the relationship between patient and nurse. Entrance is free but please register online.

 

After the Edinburgh meeting we will have a selection of items from the RCN archive available to view.

Meetings

Upcoming Health Archives and Records Group AGM, University of York, 29 September 2017

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Dear colleagues,

The next HARG AGM will be held at the Lifelong Learning suite, Borthwick Institute for Archives at the University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD, 11am-4pm.

1.      10.30-11:00: Tea and coffee served.
2.      11:00:  Welcome and introductions
3.      11:05: Minutes and matters arising relating to last meeting
4.      11:10: HARG Committee report (Administration, website)
5.      11.20: HARG Projects (Sensitivity workshop/GDPR implementation/Plans for 2018)
6.      11.50: National Archives health sector update
7.      12:10: Open forum/sector and partner news
8.      12.30: Lunch
9.    14.00: ‘Digitisation. Why? How?’, Chris Webb, Keeper of Archives, Borthwick Archives
10.    14.30: ‘’The British Red Cross and the launch of the NHS’, Dr Rosemary Wall, University of Hull
11.    15.00: Questions for speakers, followed by tea and coffee
12.    15.30: Optional tour of the Archives/time to see exhibitions

The meeting is open to all, there are a few spaces to still available. Please contact me if you
would wish to attend or have any other queries (healtharchivessite@gmail.com).