Thursday 22 May 2014

Transforming Archives

In April this year we announced on our Twitter feed that The National Archives has received a grant of nearly £1m from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) under its Skills for the Future programme, which gives people the skills they need for careers in heritage and opens up heritage to wider audiences.

The grant will enable The National Archives to run a new project, Transforming Archives, offering trainees the opportunity to develop practical archiving skills and continue the vitally important role archives play in providing a gateway to our nation's rich and fascinating history. It will provide opportunities for people from a diverse range of backgrounds to explore the world of archives, learn about the important work that goes into preserving heritage, and play a significant role in sharing our history with the wider community.

Transforming Archives will run from 2014 to 2017 and will run in partnership with the Archives and Records Association and a network of partners who will host work placements at archive and heritage services. 

Hull University Archives was one of the services selected to host a trainee - and we will be hosting one trainee a year for the next three years. The trainee will get an understanding of how the service works, our collecting policies and the wide range of users we assist. They will take the lead in a project to digitise material relating to Philip Larkin that we hold and they will also be involved in our outreach and community engagement activities - by which we mean contributing to the History Centre website, this blog and our twitter feed. There will also be opportunities to get involved with aspects relating to the year long celebration in 2017 as Hull celebrates being UK City of Culture.

In addition to planning a couple of really interesting collections-based projects we have already started thinking about the staff development and careers support we can offer the successful trainee. The opportunities will be advertised nationally and we will post an update when this has been released.

Simon Wilson
Senior Archivist

Update 13th June - the jobs have now been advertised. There is some background information about the programme on The National Archives website, the advert also appears in a number of places including The Guardian and Jobs24.co.uk 

Information and details of the Hull History Centre opportunity are on The National Archives website. The closing date is Wednesday 9th July.

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