Thanks to Welsh Government, and their Collections Management Capital Improvements Programme, the team at Gwent Archives will spend the next 6 months transforming several of our collections processing rooms to create more effective spaces to look after our archives.
£80,000 of funding will allow us to:
- Remodel the current digitisation room as a triage room for assessing new collections, identifying items that may be damp, mouldy, infested by pests or require conservation treatment and repackaging new collections into archive boxes. The digitisation equipment will be moved to a smaller room so that space is used more effectively.
- Fit out an unused strongroom with mobile racking for use as an Isolation room for any items that require isolation to prevent cross-contamination, for example if they are affected by mould, pest or damp. A cold-storage cabinet will be purchased for items that require treatment by freezing
- Refit the conservation storage room to better store materials, freeing up space in the adjacent studio for additional equipment such as a cast-iron floor standing guillotine for box making. Current worktables will be replaced by height-adjustable tables to improve accessibility.
- Enlarge the current ‘workroom’, where cataloguing the collections takes place, to absorb an unused room next door. This will allow more staff to catalogue the collections, making more collections available for research, and height-adjustable tables will increase accessibility.
Work started in early November and will complete by the end of March 2025. There should not be any impact on access to the collections at Gwent Archives, but there may be a little more noise than usual!
Our first project is to install the mobile shelving in a small strongroom, but the room needs to be cleared of archives first. The archives stored in there all require conservation or preservation treatment of some kind, such as
- removing photographs from their frames as the frames are bulky, are made from acidic materials and have started to break down
- cleaning documents affected by dust, dirt and other agents of destruction.
It’s ‘all hands on deck’ working with our conservator to finish this work ready for the new shelving, with our preservation assistant cleaning very dirty items using a down draught table to take the dust out of the air and prevent inhalation, archive assistants removing the photographs from their frames as well as carrying out light cleaning and our fabulous volunteers also helping with the lighter cleaning.
We’ll post regular project updates on our social media, so follow us to find out more!
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