No day is ever exactly like another for archivists, which is one of the reasons I went into the profession. It offers variety, challenge and a fascination for anyone interested in the past. The day below is a fictional one, a composite of many days in my life and those of my colleagues, designed to give a brief glimpse of just some of our many duties.

 
The Principal Archivist, Claire Skinner at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre Open Day, 2007

Today begins with our monthly team meeting – an opportunity for staff in both archives and local studies to talk about the operation of the search room and see if we can improve our procedures. Following this I unlock the front door at the usual time of 9.30 am and let in the people already waiting patiently outside, obviously eager to come in and begin or continue their research! 'Read more' to find out what else the day brings......
 

The usual onslaught of e-mails awaits me when I switch on my computer and while some of these are purely for information and can be filed or deleted, others require immediate action. A member of Council staff wishes to borrow one of their files from 1975 required for a legal case – the Council’s own records are still very much ‘living’ records even though they have been transferred to the archives, so they still can be recalled by the department of origin when necessary.  During my visit to the strong room to produce the file, fill out the paperwork and send it in the internal post, a donation has come in from a member of the public and is waiting my attention. The collection contains some slightly mould-infected ledgers from a local firm, and a small collection of photographs dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries – wonderful records which to my joy have captions on the back giving the names of both people and places shown. I place the mouldy records in our drying room where in due course the archives conservators will retrieve them and clean them, then fill in brief details on our database, a process we call accessioning, and create two copies of our receipt – one of which will be returned in an s.a.e – postal strike permitting! In due course I will be able to sort through the records and catalogue them in more detail on another part of the database, and a copy of the list will go into the search room, and also be sent to the original owner.

During the course of the above the telephone rings several times and I arrange to go and collect a large quantity of archives from a local hospital who are clearing out their cupboards. It may require the hire of a van, or for me to speak nicely to a colleague who has a larger car than I do! I do not know exactly what I shall find when I go there, and I enjoy this ‘treasure-hunting’ aspect of the job immensely.

In the afternoon I drive out to a village where the local townswomen’s guild have hired the community centre to have their afternoon meeting, and I am the guest speaker. I take my trusty laptop and data projector (how much easier than wrestling boxes of slides used to be!) and talk for three quarters of an hour about the work of the archive service. They seem very appreciative and afterwards one lady promises to bring in the records of her family’s business, which will fill in another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of local history. Such offers make the journey and time taken feel very worthwhile.

I return to the office and find my volunteers have arrived and would like some guidance on what to do next. There are a variety of volunteers who work for the archive service but these are a pair of sixth formers at a local school who are doing A-level history and wanting to gain work experience of the heritage field. They are enthusiastic and hard-working as always. On their departure I try to clear some more of the e-mail backlog, then at 5.30 it is time to lock up, and pack things away, ready for the new day. One thing is for sure – it will be different from today!

Claire Skinner

Principal Archivist