Case Study - Pay and Power

Programme: Heritage Grants
Applicant: MLA West Midlands
Grant awarded: £378,000
Project length: 3 Years

Pay and Power - printable (MS Word, 179KB)

Summary

The project, Pay and Power, took a strategic approach to making a themed series of uncatalogued collections about work and politics in the West Midlands. The collections were in demand from users and had potential to be accessible and of value to new audiences.

The partnership consisted of 14 archives, including local authority services, a university, Birmingham Roman Catholic Church Diocesan Archives and an independent record office trust. The project created access to 18 archive collections by cataloguing them and making the catalogues available online via the Internet.

Using volunteers, the project ran an extensive series of training sessions, workshops and events aimed at a range of audiences including teachers, librarians, curators, and new users so they could learn about how to access the resources and, in turn, be able to show other people how to do likewise. There were six project staff including four archivists, and an outreach officer.

The aims of the project

To increase physical and online access to the 18 collections
To widen awareness of the collections’ content by improving service to current users and developing new audiences

Benefits for heritage

The 18 collections were all catalogued, which meant there could be properly accessed for the first time, either physically or by searching the internet
Some collections were repacked and minor conservation carried out

Benefits for people

More people are now requesting to view the material in record offices and c15,000 requests to view the catalogues online are made each month
Volunteers gained or increased skills in conservation, cataloguing, editing and inputting data
Double the number of planned training, workshops and events took place with 665 people attending. These varied from: activities for teaching staff linked to the National Curriculum to training to make archives more accessible to the visually impaired
Over 90% of those at events agreed that their understanding of the collections and the archives service had improved and had a positive attitude to visiting again
Over 90% of those attending the training sessions gained a more positive attitude about working with the archive service and overall there was an increase in referrals to archive services

Lessons learnt

Think about your users. You need a clear awareness of your target audiences, so carry out some initial research prior to planning a project
Identify and plan to provide the essential skills needed to complete the project

Long term benefits

The outreach programme was very successful in improving awareness of archives; boosted understanding and knowledge of archives in general and of the collections of the host record offices in particular
Partnerships at a local level between record offices and teachers, curators, librarians and new users groups have grown. Over 90% of the professional staff that attended events agreed they felt inspired to enter into partnership with the archive
The use of evaluation techniques, particularly during the outreach sessions, gathered evidence and useful information for long term planning
Several of the events led to plans to work with different organisations and local authority services to develop inter-generational projects and the creation of new resources to meet identified needs from professional colleagues or partners
The catalogued collections are available on the Access to Archives website

The budget

Main Project Costs	£	Funding	£
Equipment / materials	3,200	Cash from partners	31,500
Staff / recruitment	324,000	Other grants / cash	5,000
Training and travel	17,700	Non-cash contributors	54,500
Volunteer labour	54,500	HLF grant (81%)	378,000
Activities / workshop	49,600
		Total costs	456,000

Photograph of a crowd at a union meeting

Photograph of a union meeting, 1922

Sector

Collections

Activity

Conservation; Participation; Learning