Tag Archives: work experience

Remote volunteering – working with Keele University placement students

Posted on by
Reply

Over the past year we’ve had the pleasure of working with staff at Keele University to provide placements for students from their School of Humanities.

The opportunity came about after working with Dominic Janes, Professor of Modern History at Keele, on the Laughter in the Long Twentieth Century exhibition in 2025, who put us in touch with his colleagues in the placement team. Our offer was advertised to students, along with many others, in the Winter term of 2025, with placements beginning in January 2026. We had applications from two students, Saleem and James, who would be working with us remotely during the entirety of their placement.

Whilst setting up and running remote volunteering can be challenging, we had had some experience over the last few years of working with students in this way, so felt that we would be in a good place to widen this offer out to students outside of Kent. As their placements required them to complete 70 and 100 hours of effort respectively, we decided we would split the role into three seperate tasks, to not only widen the students experience of the sorts of collections you might work with in an archive setting, but also to give them some task variation over their time with us.

Playbill, David Drummond Pantomime Collection [DDP/PB/BIRK/ARG/002]

I initially met with the students for a short interview in December, where we discussed their interest in the project and what they might bring to it. Then, after both agreeing to move forward with the placement, we met again in January to kick off the placement and to go through training and expectations. Regular catch ups where then scheduled throught the placement for us to all check in. The work was organised using Google Drive and Teams. The activities they worked on were:

The placements ran up unitl the end of May 2026. We are so grateful to both Saleem and James for the time and effort they have spent with us over the last few months. Here are some reflections from them…

From James:

Over the last five months, we have been cataloguing artefacts from three collections to make them available online via the university’s online catalogues. This will benefit the academic community, particularly those with an interest in local and theatrical history and politics, as well as the local community.

The Martin Rowson Collection documents over three decades of political and social activity across the United Kingdom. We listed almost 200 cartoons in this collection, which will be added to the British Cartoon Archive, one of the largest cartoon collections in the UK. The cartoons that we have been creating metadata for will be among the most significant nationally, since they are the work of Martin Rowson, cartoonist for The Guardian. His art style makes the caricatures appear amusing and satirical to the reader, whilst also educating them about the event from that day.

The David Drummond Collection is an extensive collection documenting the history of pantomime over 200 years through playbills and other materials. Through the work we have carried out, users will be able to search by pantomime title, location of each performance, as well as by actor/actress if they are looking for something specific.

The Winstanley Collection is an oral history collection consisting of a series of interviews conducted by Michael Winstanley with Kent residents in the 1970s, discussing life in Kent at the turn of the 20th century. In these recordings, they discuss their lives and how the local community has shaped them and others. This work involved editing transcripts and creating content summaries, which will make the collection more accessible and discoverable to users. This will be impactful to the local community, as some members may well be descended from the people interviewed. Therefore, this will allow them not only to learn about them but also to listen to them in their own words.

From Saleem:

How did I start?
Through a placement module at my university, I got the opportunity to apply to work with The University of Kent’s special collections and archives (UKSCA) on three of their collections. The collections included the Martin Rowson Guardian cartoons, David Drummond playbills and Michael Winstanley oral history collection. After reading the description of the tasks I had to complete I decided it would be an amazing fit for myself and after applying and interviewing, I got the job. I had 5 months to complete 75 hours’ worth of work online starting from January which was great news.

Martin Rowson Cartoons Collections
This collection was my favorite one to work on. The collection comprises many cartoons that Martin Rowson has drawn to be published in the Guardian newspaper in recent years. How politicians and scenarios are drawn out was something I found very funny. It made it an extremely enjoyable experience cataloguing them. It was also great as I could catch up on what was happening across those years, how people perceived these scenarios and how important they were.  All this combined made this collection one of my favorite ones to complete due to how fun the material I was working on was and the manner of the work I had to complete.

David Drummond Playbill Collection
This collection comprised of numerous playbills collected overtime by David Drummond from pantomimes. The playbills were from the 19th century to the 20th century from across the UK. I found this collection to be a very good insight into what the entertainment industry used to be like. The way they advertised and sold tickets to shows has completely changed and how they did it was very simple. It was also incredible to see what pantomimes are still going on to this day. Many of the shows have now been adapted over time but seeing how they originated was fascinating. It opened my eyes to what theatre used to be like and understanding that this used to be people’s primary form of entertainment made this collection feel more important to me since this was probably so important to everyone who went to these pantomimes.

Michael Winstanley Oral History Collection
This collection was very fascinating to me. It comprises of transcriptions of different interviews Michael Winstanley carried out with people who lived in Kent during the turn of the 20th century. He asked these people about different aspects of their lives, even the menial parts such as what they primarily used to eat and drink, school life and much more. It opened my eyes to what people had to experience and to know that it came from a person who grew up living this way and knew nothing else except for that helped me understand how far humanity has come in less than a century. The lack of options they had would only cover 10% of the options we have available to use now. It is also fascinating as we could be the ones being interviewed for someone in the future to look at and think about how people could live like this.

To Conclude
This opportunity has been amazing. With so much history to look back on and realizing what each collection represents, it makes me wonder what else there is about the past that we could catalogue so that we can better understand the people who came before us. With how much knowledge and enrichment I have gained from working on these collections, I hope to gain more from finding different aspects of people’s lives from the past to catalogue.

 

Preserving ceramics – a work placement project

Posted on by
Reply

We welcomed three university students to the archives earlier this year to work on ceramic objects in our Holt Bairnsfather Collection and Graham Thomas Collection. The students were joining us on work placements as part of their studies, and were asked to complete a number of tasks to help us preserve, catalogue and make accessible these collections:

  • Reviewing: Carrying out a condition report for each item in the collection and photographing each item
  • Cleaning: Using conservation materials to gently clean the items to ensure they are free of dust and grime
  • Repacking: Creating custom enclosures for each item using plastazote and ‘Really Useful Boxes’
  • Listing: Creating descriptions for each item in a spreadsheet that will be imported into Calm, our Collection Management System

You can find out more about these collections on our catalogue:
Holt Bairnsfather Collection
Graham Thomas Collection

Harvey (Canterbury Christ Church University)

Working on the Bairnsfather Collection has been my first experience working as a part of an archival team. It has been an amazing experience and has taught me a lot about not only how working in an archive works but also about a part of history that I did not know a lot about before starting my placement here.

The work I did as part of the team was cataloguing, filling out condition reports, and packaging the items that were to be added to the collection. When cataloguing and completing condition reports it was vital to note down every important detail which people might find important when looking to study these items. Fully assessing the condition was also important as it could be that a detail that someone wanted to look at is damaged, or it could help the archival team know what needed to be handled with a little extra care. When looking into the items to write up their description I learned a lot about not only the items themselves but also about the history surrounding them. This was history I was unlikely to look into myself as I am more of a medievalist.

The beginnings of packaging being constructed

The process of creating protective packaging for the items was a very interesting one as it was not something I had considered as a part of working in an archive before this point. It was one of the reasons for which I applied to do my placement at the Kent Special Collections and Archives department. The way I created the packaging for the items changed throughout my placement.

The figure of President Wilson, depicted holding an ammunition shell.

At first I took measurements at every new layer of plastazote (the main material used in the creation of the packaging). However, by the end, I would measure the first layer and then use that as a template for the rest of the layers. Using scraps of the foam was also a way in which I could make layers on particularly unique shapes of items as it was easier to use the smaller, already-cut pieces than it would be to cut out new ones.

 

 

 

Overall, I found my time working with the Bairnsfather Collection to be very rewarding. The skills and history I learned are invaluable and I look forward to going back and helping out again.

______________________________________________________________________

Nirvanna (Canterbury Christ Church University)

This post is dedicated to commemorating the University of Kent’s Special Collections and Archives department and their continuative effort to make unique historical collections available to the benefit of wider society. This department houses and stores over one hundred and fifty collections which range from materials including memorabilia, ceramics, and publications. Throughout the duration of my time working alongside this department, I assisted with the archival processing of the Graham Thomas Collection.

The Graham Thomas Collection

This collection was gifted to the University’s Special Collections and Archives Department by the former lecturer in politics Dr Graham Thomas, after he passed away in April 2023. Dr Graham Thomas was an active participant in the founding of the British Cartoon Archive in the early 1970s. His addition to the Archives consists of the personal items he acquired throughout his lifetime, relating to theatre and cartoons, including the political and cartoon ceramics that will follow in this post.

F.C.G “Toby” Jugs

Fig 1. Pictured is the F.C.G “Toby” Jug Collection depicting seven of the eleven allied war leaders, President Woodrow Wilson depicted in navy blue to the left, Marshall Foch in the centre and David Lloyd George on the right.

A large part of this collection is the political memorabilia collected by Dr Thomas in the form of ceramics. An example of this is the F.C.G “Toby” series pictured in figure 1. This collection represents the full series created by political cartoonist Sir Francis Carruthers Gould in 1917, depicting eleven allied war leaders as decorative ceramic toby jugs. These figures include Winston Churchill (pictured in figure two below) and President Woodrow Wilson (pictured in figure one above), both of whom were widely influential during World War I.

Figure two: pictured Winston Churchill Soane and Smith Toby Jug, 1918, © University of Kent Special Collections and Archives

The accumulation of this series has proven to be a rarity as, upon research, only a limited number of each character toby jug was produced by the makers, Wilkinsons Ltd. Accompanying the figures of the Toby jugs is documentation explaining the release of this toby series as pictured in figure three below. The documentation briefly states that during the time the series was released, there was an increase of demand leading to a ‘reserve list’ for subscribers enquiring after these unique pieces, which consequently required buyers to pay a high price for them. With their existence being in demand from consumers it prompted the producers Soane and Smith to destroy the moulds after their creation so that others could not attempt to replicate them.

Background of Political figure ceramics

The use of ceramics to depict images has been historically significant to convey wider societal opinions on specific subject matters. For modern-day political artists, ceramics and cartoon depictions will be created with the intention to capture the common thoughts and reactions to the affairs of political leaders. The narrative behind these creations has followed the attempt to admonish their audience using satire to question political thought and encourage subversion in the public.

Fig 3: Documentation of a poster promoting the release of the F.C.G “Toby” Series © University of Kent Special Collections and Archives.

The importance of archiving and housing records of such suggestive ceramics is so that there is an inclusive record of public opinion. Not only the fact of historical events, but the lasting effect of politicians on public lives. Many of which, during their time period, did not have a voice to change or challenge governmental authority on their own.

Concluding thoughts

In credit to the Special Collections and Archives department, the artefacts they collect continue to increase the exposure of unknown stories to the wider public. Thus, allowing the general public to access resources that sustain the education of past culture for current and future generations.

Further Reading

Books: Edith Garcia, Ceramics and the Human Figure, (A&C Black Visual Arts, 2012).

Open Access Articles: Deniz Onur Erman, ‘Ceramics and Humour,’ Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences, Vol. 51, (2012), p 413.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042812033198?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=87d0ff274cec888f

______________________________________________________________________

Lizzie (University of Kent)

I spent multiple weeks working as a volunteer in the University of Kents Special Collections department documenting and packaging the Holt Bairnsfather collection of ceramics with the cartoons of Captain Bruce Bairnsfather on them.

This was not only an enjoyable time but also educational. This experience allowed me to apply the information I had received during lectures as well as receive some additional insight into the career of archives. During this internship I experienced the process of cataloguing the ceramic collection (this included the writing of a description on excel that would later be put on the website) and packaging the ceramics.

While it started off easy with the packaging it became more difficult due to the unusual shapes of the ceramics like jugs cups and figurines. Each ceramic was stored properly in plastic containers with padding to prevent movement. As each item was packaged, I became more proficient and became able to make up a box in one to one and a half sessions depending on the number of objects.

 

A useful method was applied when helping me adjust to the volunteering; they gradually increased the difficulty of the objects until I got to the largest and most intricate box. This was the tea set. I had to pack seven cups and seven saucers as well as a tea pot and its lid in one box. This was the largest number of objects that needed to go into a single box that I had done. As the cups were all the same it saved time on documenting them onto the spreadsheet, but it still took the entire 6 hours I was there to get the whole box recorded. By the end of the second session I had completed work on the teapot and the saucers. These took a really long time as there was a lot of layers to the packaging that was needed to be cut in order for the ceramics to be secure. As I had to fit so much into one box I discussed with Clair, my supervisor, on how to fit it in. I couldn’t use the same method I had done for previous plates as there wasn’t enough room. This led to the plates being placed on their side rather than flat. I found that the teapot and teacups were more difficult to secure due to their handles. I had to cut through multiple layers of plastazote accurately and rather narrowly to ensure they fit. In comparison the saucers only needed rectangles which is easy to adjust when necessary.

Overall, this was a wonderful, and well supported experience in a friendly environment that enabled me to steadily progress through different difficulties. Out of all I’ve learnt it was also an amazing opportunity to explore the archives in the basement of the library and see how the ceramics would be stored after I had finished packaging them.