Alongside their ‘Musical Roots’ evening last week, the cultural champions, our University Archives team, not only taught nurses how to make use of the archives, delivered a creative teaching workshop to local teachers but also gave a local history talk at Coldside.
Rest assured, history has never been so alive.
This feisty team of archivists and volunteers love nothing more than to engage with the public.
Jan Merchant, Senior Archivist in the team says the whole point of our outreach programme is to “show what we have and demonstrate how accessible the collections are. It’s a genuine pleasure to be able to reach out to the public in such a positive way.”
One series of stories they are currently showcasing is the Oral History Project (OHP). Soon to be half a decade old the project records reminiscences of people from across the city and beyond, mainly those associated in some way with the University.
Part of a busy team hidden away at in the basement of the Tower Building, when asked if there was a great story tucked away in the archive collections Jan replied, “No come on, all the stories are so different…there is no great one, they are all pure gold!”
The OHP has almost 90 reminiscences ranging from the overtly academic to city-centric stories including those who worked in the textile industry. These reminiscences were used in the first of their (high successful) OHP events, ‘Talking Textiles’ last autumn. Archive staff have a huge mix of events in the pipeline.
Their event this past Thursday was no different, curating the thematically musical recordings, and those of musicians who have connected with the University, from Ged Grimes to Sheena Wellington and Craig Weir amongst others has meant the Archives have built up a stack of stories they love to share.
What’s more, many of these memories are brought to life by their authors themselves throughout the OHP events. This tangible connection with the city means our Archives team are always rooting up history that makes a difference.
Follow the team at: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/archives