Blog at the Ballast

This week's photo is the first military photogaph I've included. Dan's collection does have a number of images of military craft but it was often harder to photograph these ships during the wartime for obvious reasons and they are definitely outnumbered by the puffers and sailing vessels.

This is picture of the HMS Geranium which was a Flower class corvette launched in 1940 and built by William Simons & Co. in Renfrew.


After the end of the Second World War she was sold to the Royal Danish Navy. They renamed her Thetis and she was scrapped in 1963.

Today I'm in Edinburgh attending an information session on the archive pace setter scheme. This is one of the things I'm doing with my University of Glasgow hat on rather than purely for the Ballast Trust. So I'll be reporting back to colleagues at the University when I am in on Tuesday about the scheme and what it means for them.

However, as the scheme is about highlighting innovation in the sector and the Ballast Trust works in a fairly unique way I could get involved with it on behalf of the Ballast Trust as well.

The scheme is being led by the National Council on Archives and they are "looking for a range of archive services, both big and small, and from all parts of the archive sector, to showcase how they are developing new working practice within their organisations through project-working."

It was built as the 'Garmoyle' by William Denny & Brothers in 1904 but renamed for the final time as Arran Rose in 1946. Other previous names were Stronshira (1921) and North Inch (1919). It was renamed the Arran Rose when it was bought by the Arran Sea Transport and Supply Company based in Brodick. It was scrapped and broken up in 1960.

The next step for the procedure manual will be to develop a template collection agreement to outline what the client repositories want done to collections when they are sent to the Ballast Trust to help ensure that everyone knows what they are doing!

This week's photo is of a Puffer, the Strongbow. It was built in 1927 by Scotts of Bowling to be used by the tug company Steel & Bennie Ltd.



Full information about the tug is available on the Clydebuilt database here.

Today's picture is of a tall ship with a very interesting history. The Padua was built in 1926, not on the Clyde, but in Bremerhaven-Wesermünde. I'm assuming that Dan McDonald photographed her on a visit or stopover in Scotland.

The Padua was commissioned as a cargoship for the German shipping company F. Laeisz of Hamburg who specialised in the South American nitrate trade. The Padua was one of Laeisz' Flying P-Liners and one of her sister ships the Pommern was built on the Clyde by J. Reid & Co shipyard. Before the Second World War she carried out many long distance runs to South America, China and Australia from Germany.

In 1946, she was given to the USSR as war reparation and renamed after the early 19th century Baltic German explorer in Russian service, Adam Johann Krusenstern. She worked on hydrographic and oceanographical surveys before being transferred to the Ministry of Fisheries to be used as a schoolship.

Today the Kruzenshtern is the second largest ship in the Russian fleet and takes part in tall ship events around the world. Further information about her is available here and contemporary pictures can be found here including this one which shows the control area above as it is today with the Padua replaced with Kruzenshtern in Russian.

The Ballast Trust has a backlog of nearly 400 linear metres. This is made up of around 15 distinct collections ranging from 90 linear metres down to just 2 linear metres. It is my job as Archivist to decide how to tackle the backlog, making best use of the expertise we have from other staff and volunteers and what our priorities should be.

There are many different ways to decide cataloguing priorities. A normal working archive might focus on accessions that most closely reflect their collection policy or are frequently requested by researchers. Some archives concentrate on getting through multiple small collections quickly and leave large collections till last. An interesting presentation from two American Archivists about minimal processing to clear archival backlogs can be found here.

At the Ballast Trust, the first step has been to find out exactly what we have and I am now thinking about what factors should inform the decision process to assign priorities to collections. I have read the Logjam Report which has useful criteria for definining cataloguing priorites. Our own priorities include:

• Whether we have staff or volunteers with the expertise to process the collection
• Size of collection - could it be a quick win?
• Physical condition - is it at risk?
• Does it have an owner - is there a particular demand for it and does the owner have the space to take it back when finished?

In time this will mean that we can begin to reduce the number of shelves we have that look like this.

So far I've focused on the shipping side of things on the blog which is not very representative of what the Ballast Trust does. Particularly not the work of our 3 volunteers who are all processing railway collections.

I thought this podcast by The National Archives at Kew on "God's Wonderful Railway" would help balance things out. It is a recording of a talk given by Bruno Derrick to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Great Western Railway in 2008.

The talk covers the early years of the Great Western Railway and how the development of the railways transformed the landscape of Great Britain and became the agent of enormous social change.

How to listen to the podcast: A podcast can be listened to on a computer or on any mp3 player—not just an iPod. To listen to this podcast simply click on the 'pay' button and it will start to play automatically. If you want to save it and listen later, click the 'download' button. This will allow you to download the file, save it and listen later.