Hidden killers of the Victorian home

Tonight’s BBC4 documentary, Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home (10pm) reveals just how many ‘innovative’ domestic products and gadgets harboured deadly poisons and diseases.

Researchers from Modern TV spent several days  in Special Collections and Archives consulting illustrated Victorian periodicals, gathering stills for the documentary. Many useful images, often adverts, were found in Punch, the Illustrated London News, The Graphic, and magazines aimed at the Victorian housewife, such as The Sketch, The Queen, and Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine. Over 1000 images were gathered in the research process.

The documentary explores the presence of arsenic in Victorian wallpaper, lead in toys’ paint, the unsafe use of gas and electricity, and unsterilised babies’ feeding bottles. It also explores the detrimental effect that the introduction of metal eyelets had on corsetry. The eyelets allowed women’s corsets to be pulled even tighter in the indulgence of fashion, causing considerable damage to the back and internal organs, and increased the risk of miscarriage, as many women continued to wear restrictive corsets throughout pregnancy.

Hidden Killers of the Victorian Home is available on iPlayer until 11th April 2013.

Printers and bookbinders visit Special Collections and Archives

Special Collections and Archives recently hosted visits of the British Printing Society (South Wales branch) and the Society of Bookbinders (South West England branch). Both groups were particularly interested in our large collection of privately printed books, by presses such as Kelmscott, Eragny, Cuala, Ashendene, Essex House and Doves.

 

Both groups were delighted to have the opportunity to examine the collections.  It was fascinating to discuss these examples with members of the present-day book trade, all of whom were highly trained experts in their field.

Resource guide for women’s history launched for International Women’s Day

Special Collections and Archives is marking International Women’s Day 2013 with the launch of its latest resource guide on women’s history and gender studies. The guide covers sources from the 16th-21st centuries, including:

• Bibliographies and reference works on British women’s history and writing;
• Biographies of the lives of women;
• Gendered children’s literature and comics;
• Conduct, etiquette and advice manuals;
• Broadsides and ballads relating to women as both victims and perpetrators of crime;
• Memoirs, diaries and autobiographies of women;
• Sources relating to women teachers, and girl’s eduction;
• Journals, magazines and ballads on fashion and dress;
• Historical works on women’s health and medical treatment, including the history of midwifery, gynaecology and obstetrics; the history of nursing as a profession; and reports of the Medical Officer for Cardiff, including data on maternity and child welfare;
• A range of material relating to women’s lives around the world, including newspapers from Indian women’s organisations, Spanish Civil War sources related to women, sources relating to women in Australia, European Union and United Nations reports on women, and papers of female slavery abolitionists;
• A wide range of women’s journals and magazines, from society pages to radical suffragette publications;
• Literary works by women, including the papers of Ann Griffiths (poet), Joan Reeder (journalist), Maria Edgeworth (novelist), Felicia Hemans (poet), Mary Tighe (poet), and Lady Sidney Morgan (novelist). Information on female applicants to the Royal Literary Fund, and women writers published by Longmans;
• Musical scores and archives from Morfydd Llwyn Owen (1891-1918), Grace Williams (1906-1977), and Nancy Storace (1765-1817);
• Press cuttings from late 20th century Welsh newspapers on women’s issues;
• Political papers from the British Labour Party and Newport Labour Party on women’s issues; papers of the Labour MPs Ellen Wilkinson and Marion Phillips; the diary of social reformer Beatrice Webb; archives of the Women’s Labour League, journals by Sylvia Pankhurst, and a range of suffragette magazines;
• Books by and archives belonging to female travellers;
• Papers relating to the history of female students at Cardiff University and its predecessors;
• Sources on witchcraft and those accused of its practice (commonly women), in Europe and America;
• Sources on women’s societies

Lunchtime workshops: women’s history and gender studies

Special Collections and Archives’ series of lunchtime workshops continues in December with sessions on women’s history and gender studies sources. The workshops are intended to raise awareness of the breadth of material available to support research in this area, and as a general introduction to using Special Collections and Archives.

The second workshop on women’s history sources will be led by Assistant Archivist, Alison Harvey. Topics will include: biography; children’s literature; conduct/advice manuals; crime; diaries and autobiographies; education; fashion; health and medicine; international affairs; journals and magazines; literature and journalism; music; newspapers; politics, suffrage and the labour movement; travel; University history; witchcraft; and women’s societies.

Workshops will be held in Special Collections and Archives, on the lower ground floor of the Arts and Social Studies Library, Corbett Road, Cardiff. The women’s history workshop is scheduled for 12-1pm on Thursday 6 December, and will be repeated at 1-2pm on Friday 7 December.

Workshops are open to all, but places are limited, so if you would like to attend either session, please email HarveyAE@cf.ac.uk, stating your preferred time.

New for 2012/13: SCOLAR Lunchtime Workshops

This year, SCOLAR is offering a pilot series of lunchtime workshops on subjects relevant to a range of disciplines. Workshops on illustrated sources and women’s studies will run this autumn, with sessions on historical travel literature and World War One sources in the spring. The workshops are intended to raise awareness of the breadth of material available to support research in these areas, and as a general introduction to using Special Collections and Archives.

The first workshop on illustrated sources will be led by Assistant Archivist, Alison Harvey. It will introduce a range of illustrated material from the SCOLAR collections, including literary, scientific, medical, and women’s periodicals and miscellanies, newspapers, children’s literature, art and architecture, novel, plays and poetry, travel literature, ballads and almanacs, and prints, posters and propaganda.

Workshops will be held in Special Collections and Archives, on the lower ground floor of the Arts and Social Studies Library, Corbett Road, Cardiff. The illustrated sources workshop is scheduled for 12-1pm on 22 November, and will be repeated at 1-2pm on 23 November. Places are limited, so if you would like to attend either session, please email HarveyAE@cf.ac.uk, stating your preferred time.

Download a copy of the workshop poster

Community Engagement Grant funds Victorian Study Day

Three PhD students from the School of English, Communication and Philosophy have successfully bid for a grant from the Community Engagement Team to organise a Victorian Study Day for local sixth form college students. Laura Foster, Michael Goodman and Helen McKenzie, who are all writing their theses on aspects of Victorian literature and culture, intend to present their specialist research in a format which is relevant, accessible and engaging to a wider audience. Earlier this year, Laura and Helen gained related experience of translating their research visually, when they took part in SCOLAR’s annual Postgraduate Curators programme.

The day will begin with a visit to Special Collections and Archives, where the students will have an opportunity to handle and interact with original 19^th century texts. Led by archivist Alison Harvey, the workshop will encourage the students to consider the materiality of print culture and how books were read and produced. The session will focus on texts that have visual impact, such as the Illustrated London News, the collected works of Tennyson, and Victorian children’s literature. This practical session aims to engage and excite students early in the day, and to introduce concepts that will be developed in the afternoon workshops.

Laura, Michael and Helen will each lead a workshop on their subject area, designed to challenge students’ assumptions about reading, texts, and culture, both in the nineteenth century and today. Much of the literature selected for discussion will be informed by the A-level set texts, and students will be encouraged to reinterpret these in light of how they were actually published and read in the 19^th century. Workshops will be held in small groups of 10, introducing students to the seminar-style environment of university, and aim to build confidence in discussing ideas with their peers.

Laura, Michael and Helen will be contacting local schools to ask teachers to nominate students to attend the Study Day. To be held in October, sessions will take place in the Council Chambers of Cardiff University’s Main Building, with a visit to Special Collections and Archives.

Postgraduate Curators 2012

Postgraduate Curators is a programme that offers curatorial skills training to PhD students, and gives them the opportunity to curate their own exhibitions. This programme is organised by the Graduate College and SCOLAR, and open to PhD students from all disciplines – this year we had attendees from ENCAP, WELSH, JOMEC and SHARE.

The format consists of a half day workshop, with Peter Keelan speaking on project management, Alison Harvey on research and selection, and a senior lecturer from SHARE, Jane Henderson, on conservation issues. At the end of the workshop, we ask the students if any of them would like to volunteer to spend the next week planning a small exhibit on their PhD topic. This year, five of the eight students agreed to take part, and of these five, three had never visited SCOLAR before.

For those who wish to take part, we ask that in the week following the workshop, they use Voyager and our Excel lists to collate a long-list of potential material. We retrieve the items and they visit SCOLAR to examine them and make selections to cut the long-list down to a short-list. We ask them to research and write captions for each item on the short-list, and we ask them to design a poster for the exhibition. Once they have their short-lists, captions and poster, we ask them to all come in on an agreed half-day to set up the exhibits. We then talk through each exhibit to review each other’s work, and generally reflect on the experience.

The students gain time management and project management experience, as well as research and information literacy skills in searching for relevant material. In the case of those who have not visited us before, they may discover untapped resources for their research. They gain employability skills, and two types of work experience which can be very difficult to obtain – specifically in special collections work, but more broadly in the creative and cultural industries. They learn to think visually, and to phrase their research in non-specialist terms.

If the students gain a new perspective on their work – so do we. They extract and draw significance from material in our collections, of which we are often unaware. We have the opportunity to promote our collections to new audiences, and demonstrate our support of postgraduates from a range of disciplines, in a very visible way.

This year, we are featuring the following exhibitions:

Victorian medievalism: the fallen women of Tennyson’s Camelot
Sarah Clausen, Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture

The Victorian author: artist or businessman
Helen McKenzie, English Literature

Representing the workhouse
Laura Foster, English Literature

From Celtic languages to the Roman alphabet
John Caulfield, Welsh

Welsh architecture from the Salisbury Collection: a selection of original artworks
Mark Baker, Archaeology and Conservation

All the students produced excellent exhibits, but one in particular made a significant discovery. Mark Baker is working on a historical study of Welsh country houses, and found an image in the Salisbury prints collection, which is thought to be the earliest depiction of the Hafod estate, which has since been demolished. In the case of the earlier building to the right, it is the only image in existence. It’s a watercolour, not a print, so it’s entirely unique – it only exists here in Cardiff.

Mark has notified the Hafod Trust, who confirmed his hunch. As well as being a discovery which is very significant for his research, he has succeeded in interesting the local press. Both the Western Mail and the Cambrian News in Aberystwyth will be including a feature on his discovery, and by extension, the postgraduate curators programme. Mark may also be volunteering with us in future to research and prepare a full-scale exhibition on the prints contained in the Salisbury collection.

The exhibitions will be on display in SCOLAR until the end of February. Extracts from the exhibitions can be found on the SCOLAR website.

Edward Thomas biography wins literary award

Matthew Hollis, author of Now All Roads Lead to France: The Last Years of Edward Thomas, has won the Costa (formerly Whitbread) prize for best biography. The judges called it “dramatic and engrossing. A brilliant biography that moved us all.”

The biography gives an account of the last five years of Thomas’ life, in particular his friendship with poet Robert Frost, his struggles with depression, the late discovery and rapid blossoming of his talent for poetry, cut short by his decision to voluntarily fight in WWI, which culminated in his death at Arras on Easter Monday, 1917.

It was a surprise win for the debut biographer, as Claire Tomalin’s biography of Dickens had been a strong favourite. Matthew Hollis is now 2-1 favourite to win the overall award, Costa’s Book of the Year, announced on 24 January.

During his research for the biography, Hollis drew heavily on Edward Thomas’ letters, photographs and poetry manuscripts, held at Special Collections and Archives, Cardiff University. We hope this award will raise the profile of Edward Thomas’ poetry, and his substantial archives at Cardiff.

The Edward Thomas collection is fully catalogued and will shortly be available to search online. It contains around 4000 letters to and from friends and family, 2000 reviews, 500 photographs and 300 poetry manuscripts, as well as notebooks, diaries and other personal effects. It is available for consultation on appointment. Please contact the Archivist, Alison Harvey, for more information: HarveyAE@cardiff.ac.uk.

Library history: not just old book stamps

I’m currently cataloguing SCOLAR’s collection of archives relating to the history of Cardiff University Library. It contains the usual types of records you’d expect to find in an organisation’s archives – annual reports, correspondence, minutes, accounts, building plans and personnel records, as well as records specific to the library’s function, such as catalogues, user statistics, readers’ surveys, staff newsletters, and registers for requisitions, accessions, donations, and binding.

The archives do not just consist of paper records – there are slides and audio cassettes used for 1970s library inductions; a gold key used to open the Draper’s Library in 1909, library bookplate printing blocks, a framed Concrete Society prize, awarded in 1976 for the Arts and Social Studies Library (right), and yes, old book stamps.

I have been asked – why keep such archives? Would anyone want to consult ‘201/1/3/1/1 – Inter-Library loan receipts, 1936-37’? Many would be surprised to hear that library history is in fact a thriving academic field, connected to related social history disciplines such as information history, the history of the book, computing history, provenance studies and the history of reading. The archive has recently been consulted by a postgraduate student at Université de Caen, Basse-Normandie, who has written his dissertation on the history of Cardiff University Library, and kindly deposited a copy with us to aid future research.

My favourite item in the collection is a 1980 manual for one of the first personal computers, with enclosed original ‘punch-cards’. These computers processed very basic data stored on stiff card, which had with holes punched in pre-defined positions. Every position represents a single binary digit or ‘bit’ of information: no hole=0, hole=1. It serves to remind me just how far technology has advanced in the last 30 years.

The forthcoming British Librarianship and Information Work 2006-2010 will feature a chapter on Library History authored by Katie Birkwood. If you know of conferences whose proceedings have not (yet) been published, online projects, resources and databases that might not be mentioned in the traditional literature, or any particular trends that you have noticed in recent years and think are worthy of note (ideally with supporting evidence!), Katie needs you!

Orphan works to come in from the cold

Most researchers are familiar with the ’70 year rule’ – that copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author. But this currently only applies to published works. As mentioned in our previous blog post, the copyright of unpublished manuscripts, such as handwritten literary drafts or musical scores, remains with the author’s descendants until 2039, regardless of the age of the manuscript. Where a descendant cannot be traced, the work is classed as orphan.

Orphan works cannot be reproduced in any form until 2039. The British Library estimate that orphan works constitute 40% of works held by European archives – a vast reserve of knowledge unable to be shared beyond the confines of the reading room. Of particular concern are archives held in actively decaying formats such as celluloid film and audio tape. If such a work is orphan, it is currently illegal for archivists to create even a single digital copy in order to safeguard a recording’s future.

The news that the UK Government has accepted the recommendations of the Hargreaves Review of Intellectual Property, and the changes this will mean for copyright law, will be a great relief to those caring for and working with archives.

The Government plans to implement a Digital Copyright Exchange. This will allow archives to purchase a copyright licence for a nominal fee, which will allow them to reproduce and share the orphan works in their care. The funds will be held by the Exchange against the possibility of the copyright holder coming forward and seeking recompense. In the event that this does not occur, the funds will be released after a reasonable period of time, and allocated for social or cultural purposes.

SCOLAR will report on confirmed changes to copyright law when they are announced this autumn.