With my other non-work hat on, I've written a post for the UKLON Cultural Heritage blog about the benefits of using web 2.0 tools like blogs and flickr in an archive. Part of my post discusses the benefits we've gained by using a blog and joining flickr at the Ballast Trust.
If you'd like to read about it, the post is here.
Today's photo is of the FLYING FULMAR. Built as the EMPIRE ASH by John Crown & Sons Ltd in Sunderland in 1941.
She became the FLYING FULMAR in 1946 when she was sold to Clyde Shipping Co Ltd. She ended her days as the SEA ALARM.
I had originally struggled to find anything for this ship as she is labelled the FLYING FULMER in our database but thanks to the power of flickr, I received a correction from Neil F King.
I've spent a lot of time this week wrestling with graphic design to prepare a publicity leaflet for the Ballast Trust. I'm off to pick them up from the printers this afternoon but a pdf version of the leaflet can also be downloaded below.
Jimmy Reid, a Scottish trade unionist and journalist died this week (several obituaries are available here, here and here). He is famous for leading the upper clyde shipbuilders work-in in 1971 which helped to keep Govan, Linthouse and Scotstoun shipyards going. The records from some of companies in these yards have since been processed by the Ballast Trust.
The majority of the records created by companies who became part of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders are held by the University of Glasgow Archive Services, information about those collections is available in this research guide.
Today's photo is a bit of a mystery, I know its called the Flying Falcon and is obviously a tug but I can't track down who built her or where. Suggestions are welcome if people have them?
I think I have discovered that she was one of the tugs used to escort the QUEEN MARY from the Clyde in 1936 (info from NLS here). Does that ring any bells?
It is with great sadness that we have to report the death of Graham Robinson, a volunteer with the Ballast Trust. Graham had worked as a volunteer for 10 years and was a valued colleague and friend.
During his time with us he applied his many technical skills to the identification and listing of the Grahame E Langmuir collection of railway photographs which is now held at the Mitchell Library. More recently he had completed over 5 years of work to separate, rebuild and list a large collection of British Rail negatives and slides on behalf of the National Archives of Scotland.
This was a substantial project that relied heavily on Graham’s amazing powers of identification, particularly as much of the collection was from the later 20th century after the Beaching cuts when a large amount of signage disappeared making identification more difficult. Graham’s hard work has resulted in 98 boxes being completed which contain nearly 35,000 items.
He will be sorely missed by us all.
During his time with us he applied his many technical skills to the identification and listing of the Grahame E Langmuir collection of railway photographs which is now held at the Mitchell Library. More recently he had completed over 5 years of work to separate, rebuild and list a large collection of British Rail negatives and slides on behalf of the National Archives of Scotland.
This was a substantial project that relied heavily on Graham’s amazing powers of identification, particularly as much of the collection was from the later 20th century after the Beaching cuts when a large amount of signage disappeared making identification more difficult. Graham’s hard work has resulted in 98 boxes being completed which contain nearly 35,000 items.
He will be sorely missed by us all.
Colonel Michael Cobb, compiler of the Railways of Great Britain - a historical atlas has died.
Welcome to accession BT.2010.004!
This is our first new big accession and at nearly 40 linear metres it is probably now the second biggest collection we have to process.
It is a collection of drawings and plans from the Edinburgh City Council's City Engineers' Office so includes plans of roads, bridges, housing schemes, transport projects and improvements.
These pictures are from when it first arrived, it is now nicely arranged on our new shelves and will need to be laid out and sorted before we can start cataloguing. When we do start to catalogue it, it will be the first collection to go straight into our new database using Archivists' Toolkit. August already! A new month means a new batch of Dan McDonald photographs and we're now onto the 'Fs'. So, today's photo is of a tug called the Flying Hurricane.
She was originally built by Clelands (Successors) Ltd at Willington Quay-on-Tyne and launched as the Empire Thistle in 1941. This picture shows her working for the Clyde Shipping Co Ltd when she was renamed the Flying Hurricane sometime after 1946.
The rest of the 'Fs' will be added to our flickr account very soon.
The Business Archives Council (BAC) Cataloguing Grant awards 2010 were announced today and they have gone to two collections close to our hearts here at the Ballast Trust (railways and paddle steamers).
The Dorset History Centre - to catalogue the archives of Cosens of Weymouth, Paddle Steamer Company.
"Operating out of Weymouth, Dorset for nearly 150 years, Cosens’ fleet of pleasure paddle steamers were once a familiar sight serving numerous towns along the south coast, the Channel Islands and France. Cosens were also coal and ice merchants, yacht builders, mast makers, smiths, millwrights, iron and brass founders. The Cosens collection consists of 26 boxes. The panel was impressed by the potential benefits this collection will make to the wider community by supporting Dorset History Centre’s Family Learning project based around seaside holidays, and its relevance in giving historical background to the 2012 Olympics, in which Weymouth will host the sailing elements of the event."
(my favourite paddle steamer photo)
The National Railway Museum - to catalogue small railway engineering and business collections.
"The National Railway Museum’s collections covered by the grant comprise 60 small archives ranging from a few files or volumes up to two boxes. The panel was impressed by the national importance of these items and their benefit to researchers in helping them better understand the birth and growth of railways. The famous names of 19th century engineering business feature, including reports, accounts and letters by George and Robert Stephenson, I.K. Brunel, and John Rennie, and a unique commonplace book by Daniel Gooch, containing significant accounts of lines and locomotives they built."
The information in quotes about the collections was taken from here.
Both projects are due to be completed by 31 March 2011. The resultant catalogues will be made available by the repositories and submitted to the National Register of Archives.
At last our new shelves are in place and look nice and shiny and very new. My hands smell of metal still but I'm sure that will fade.
You can see here that we have put them are at the back of the work room, behind some older, smaller shelves which are getting moved. And we'll be extending the two runs of work table up to them for more room as well.
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| From The Ballast Trust |
You can see here that we have put them are at the back of the work room, behind some older, smaller shelves which are getting moved. And we'll be extending the two runs of work table up to them for more room as well.
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| From The Ballast Trust Hopefully they'll be getting filled up at the end of the week with a new accession... Stay tuned to find out what we are getting. |