Today we feature the Morrab Library Photo Archives, and we asked Lisa Di Tommaso from their team to describe the group for us. She shared that:
Our team of Photo Archive volunteers (currently standing at 11) have been scanning and researching historic photos, slides and glass negatives of images of Penwith and beyond for over ten years, making them freely searchable and visible through the library website. There are now almost 17,000 images online. As well as scanning the photos, they research the context and details of each image to enhance the record.
We asked Lisa about the communities the group works with and how they engage with them.
The project, funded with the help of the Dennis Myner Trust, allows the history of our region to be made freely available for the use of researchers, students, and members of the community seeking information of all kinds, e.g. family history, records of their residences, or just to reminisce on times past.
As well as being freely available to search on our website, our Librarian and our Photo Archives Manager deliver talks respectively about the archive to local community groups. The images feature every Friday in our social media pages, and regularly in other posts as well, and are used to advertise events at the library. We have run creative writing classes and similar events for children, using the photos in the collections to inspire their creativity. Artists have used images in the collections to create residencies, and their own use.
We asked how the work has contributed to preserving community heritage and broadened the appeal of community archives to a wider group of people?
Our collection, with its extensive range of subjects and time period (mid-19th to late-20th century) provides a deep insight into the people, and place, of your region. There is something there for everyone - for academic or creative use, family history, and more. We have always been committed to making these images free to view for everyone, at a resolution where faces are recognisable. Members of the community can come and to speak to the volunteers, ask for assistance or provide more detailed information on the stories and people behind imges. We have created an important and accessible visual history of the region for the community.
We asked for examples of running activities that have beneficial impacts on the physical, mental and social wellbeing of individuals and communities?
The Make It Better CIC group have used images from the archives for their creative wellbeing workshops.
The Devon and Cornwall Rail Partnership, a non-profit organisation that works to connect communities with their local railway, used images for their workshops with a number of schools discovering 'fantastic facts' about our local railways, through research, which included a visit from a local school.
Our talks to local community groups include historic images from their area, providing opportunities for reminiscence and conversation.
The opportunities for our volunteers to work together, share expertise, develop new skills and collaborate on researching the images is an extremely positive tool for the wellbeing of those who take part.
We asked Lisa what makes this group special and she told us:
The Morrab library was established in 1818 and has provided books and other paper resources for 208 years since. In many ways, it remains rather 'analogue' - we are currently only now working to update our card-based index of our book collections to a digital resource, for example. Mr Myner's grant to establish a Photo Studio was given in 2012 proved an enormous challenge to change the mindset of a very old library, somewhat set in its ways, to embrace and use digital technology. A new cohort of enthusiastic volunteers came aboard and started the challenging task of digitising tens of thousands of images, learning new software and scanning systems, and techniques for handling and caring for fragile collections. The results today are evident, with the continuing growth in the visual history available free of charge to the community to access. Ensuring these records are accessible to as many people as possible at no cost, rather than behind a paywall of a large photostock company for example, is a fundamental value we hold.
You can find out more about the group’s work here:
Lisa also told us about Photo Fridays when images from the Photo Archives are presented on social media each week on a monthly theme to promote the collections, as well as on other days as relevant.