As part of our Volunteers Week celebrations, we wanted to highlight the fantastic work being undertaken by our Hull University Archives volunteers at Hull History Centre.
Volunteering
Back in 2023, Hull University Archives started a long-term project to make sense of the University’s archival heritage. This is a huge undertaking, and we knew that we would need the support of volunteers if we were to get the most out of our institutional records. We have been very fortunate that so many of our wonderful University of Hull students wanted to get involved to support this project.
By volunteering their time, they are helping us to discover hidden stories, develop finding aids to support research use of the archives, and create digital images of key records to help make them more accessible. Most of the volunteer projects underway are ongoing, with volunteers contributing for as long as they are able and new volunteers picking up where others have left off. It is a real community effort!
Our Wonderful Volunteers so far
Using the University Calendars, George started work on a cheat sheet recording key useful information, such as academic term dates, key officers in post, past vice chancellors, student societies in operation, subjects taught, etc. in chronological order. This work is giving us a quick reference resource to help us respond to basic enquiries about the University’s development.
Johnathan undertook some research into a curious volume, the only detailed surviving evidence of a Physical Recreation Committee which existed between 1966-1975. Look out for his blog on the subject which will appear during 2027 as part of our centenary celebrations.
An interesting research project is being undertaken by Anna, who is using the student magazines and newspapers to uncover the hidden stories of international students at the University. There is similar work being undertaken in order to reveal the hidden history of women students.
Alfred kicked off a huge project to digitise a collection of magazines and newspapers published by the Students Union, the earliest of which appeared in 1928. Whilst Louis started another digitisation project to convert recordings of degree congregation ceremonies into an accessible digital file format.
A huge amount of discovery work was done by Lydia, who trawled through index cards and archives catalogues to identify records of relevance to the University’s history within the Hull City Archives and Local Studies collections, which are also held at the Hull History Centre. Her work will be incorporated into a source guide to be published in 2027 to support use of the collections by people wanting to research all aspects of the University’s 100 year history.
Moses is indexing a series of internal communications bulletins that were circulated to staff to keep them informed about happenings within the University. His work is helping to enhance catalogue descriptions of the bulletins, making them easier for researchers to discover when the catalogue goes live.
And finally, Alice, Annabelle, Lucy, and Toby have been painstakingly working their way through a series of huge scrapbook volumes containing hundreds, if not thousands, of press cuttings each. Their work will produce indexes to each of the volumes to support researchers in discovering the stories contained within these giant tomes!
A Huge Thank You!
So, we want to give a huge thank you to Lydia, Moses, Alice, Ben, Louis, Alfred, George, Johnathan, Anna, Alice, Toby, Lucy, and Annabelle, you’ve all been wonderful! You can follow the progress of this project and the work being undertaken by our volunteers here on the History Centre’s website. If you are a student at the University of Hull and want to get involved, you can register your interest through the University Library’s volunteering scheme.
By Claire Weatherall, Archivist at Hull History Centre