The knowledge society
- 95% of users believe that libraries are amongst the most valuable services to local communities
- 72% of users see archives as a way of strengthening community identity
- 82% of people feel it is important that their local town or city has a museum or art gallery.
Museums, libraries and archives are at the very heart of local communities, provide safe, trusted places that people from all sectors of society choose to visit.
They provide local services for local people, are receptive and responsive to different circumstances and needs as well as promoting local knowledge and history, and fostering community understanding and identity.
Museums, libraries and archives play a key part in programmes tackling social issues such as health education, crime reduction and prevention and environmental improvement. The sector helps bridge the digital divide, providing ready access to online information and services. And it engages and enables people to get involved through volunteering.
Case studies
Imperial War Museum North’s Volunteer Programme: "I feel very excited and privileged"
One of the innovations introduced by the Imperial War Museum North when it opened in 2002 was the team of 50 volunteer interpreters drawn from the community around the museums in Manchester's Trafford Park, and for visitors they are invaluable as informal guides ready with answers to any questions.
What visitors don't see is what the experience is doing for the volunteers. Recruited as part of the museum's Shape Your Future social inclusion programme - supported by the European Social Fund, Manchester's Learning and Skills Council and the Nationwide Fund - had a year's special training before the opening, in which they had the opportunity of an NVQ qualification in cultural heritage. A programme is under way now.
And they aren't just any volunteers. The scheme has targeted specific groups, such as lone parents, people with disabilities and those from minority ethnic backgrounds, 13-to-17-year-olds in danger of being excluded from school. Alongside them are volunteers from other walks of life to create proper social and age group mix.
"I have lived in Manchester for most of my life," said Jeanette McLaughlin. "Since becoming a volunteer I have found that I have become more outgoing and self-confident and speak up more than before. I feel quite comfortable approaching people to ask if I can help, and taking part in the NVQ has also helped me to increase skills which I didn't know I already had. I feel very excited and privileged to be part of the Volunteer Project." She has gone on to get a part-time job working in the shop and on the admissions desk, still helping visitors find their way around.
"The scheme has been a resounding success and provides this new Museum with a dedicated volunteering team," said Jim Forrester, the museum's director. "The museum will act as a volunteering best practice 'hub' for museums in the North West, offering its tried and tested model for involving volunteers from disadvantaged and excluded groups in innovative learning programmes."
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Working with Homeless Young People: Manchester Art Gallery
Seven homeless young people made up Manchester Art Gallery ’s project to support their aspirations and give them confidence for improving their futures by working on an art project with a public exhibition as a result. It lasted six months and was called the Seven People Seeing Project, with the artists, aged from 16 to 25, encouraged to express what they felt about life in the city.
"The issues were so subtly and beautifully explored in the exhibition; they developed are some of the most important things which can affect the daily experience of all of us: crime, powerlessness, drugs, freedom, beauty, politics, capitalism, sexuality," said Claire McDade, outreach curator for Manchester City Art Galleries. "The opportunity to express how we feel about such significant issues rarely, if ever, comes along."
They visited Tate Liverpool, the Lowry, and Imperial war Museum North as well as becoming familiar with the gallery’s own collections. They worked with a range of artists and gallery staff, learning technique but also about how to develop an exhibition.
"Working professionally with the group and treating every member of the project as an artist was vital," Claire said. "Building trust and mutual respect was a core part of the project as well as not allowing the participants to feel patronised or unwelcome."
They gained confidence not only in their own work but in museums – "Before I started on the project" said Terri Loughram, one of the seven, "I didn’t even go into galleries".
But it was also valuable for the team working with them, like exhibitions designer Chrissie Morgan: "They had such strong ideas, I was simply a conduit for them. They were very determined, they didn’t have to be led. The most impressive thing was, they knew what they wanted from the beginning."
And for project co-ordinator Debbie Goldsmith: "It gave them the opportunity to develop their thoughts through the research stages which gave them ideas about how they might want to display their work and the kind of processes they might try out," she said. "The result is an exhibition that shows the breadth of ideas and talent from seven very determined and committed young artists."
As one of the seven stood back to assess the final result, the remark was succinct: "Not bad for my first exhibition".
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Serving Local Communities: Luton Irish Forum
Luton’s Irish community numbers several thousand, the product of large scale immigration between the late 1930s and the 1960s, and they have blended into the community extremely well – a success in social integration.
But such success had a flip-side, because as younger generations of the Irish community become more a part of the wider social scene, their roots and traditions become more and more obscure, and the Luton Irish Forum was created to meet this challenge.
Luton Museum is a partner in the Moving Here
website, launched in summer 2003 by the New Opportunities Fund to record the histories of immigrant cultures via museums, libraries and archives. Luton’s forum was one of the chosen programmes.
Ten of the Forum’s members gave short personal reminiscences, autobiographical poems and plays to the website, and six more recorded detailed oral history interviews which can be heard online. The museum has been able to add to and refresh its collections with the oral records, and with Forum members museum staff are exploring ways of extending the partnership to record the experiences of many more from the Luton Irish community.
"There is very little recorded of the life and times of the ordinary Irish person who emigrated, even in towns and cities with huge Irish populations," said Frank Horan, executive members of the Luton Irish Forum. "Identity is important. I suppose that eventually we are all assimilated, but please - let us tell you something about ourselves before we go!"
"The members of the Luton Irish Forum who took part felt privileged to be involved. Moving Here will help the Irish to be recognised as a distinct community, and not just an anonymous group. It will restore a sense of identity to our people, and give them an enhanced dignity."
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The White Cane Club outreach project: City & County Museum, Lincoln
On a baking hot summer’s afternoon this summer, the relatively cool St Andrew’s Hall in Lincoln was the ideal location for a tactile Tudor costume workshop for the White Cane Club.
About 40 forty members with impaired sight came to their usual meeting place to hear museum keeper of visitor and community services Sally Bleasdale talk about Tudor domestic life, with the help of two loans resource boxes labelled ‘Tactile Tudors’.
They contained complete sets of a gentleman’s and a lady’s outfits of the time, which could be handled and were specifically chosen to be used by those who rely on their sense of touch.
The objects are normally on display at the Greyfriars Exhibition Centre in Broadgate, but the 13th century can be difficult for those with special needs, and for large parties. So the museum has an extensive outreach programme aimed at local schools, but this year it has extended it to other sections of the community.
The visit to introduce the new service to the White Cane Club was sponsored by Guide Dogs for the Blind in conjunction with the Adapt Trust.
"They were quite a lively bunch (a bit of an understatement) and were particularly interested in the more delicate matters of Tudor life – such as did they have underwear? And what did they use for toilet paper?" said Sally. "But they also loved the costumes – some bravely even tried one or two of the garments on."
"One lady was particularly thrilled to hold the clothes because she’d had been a seamstress and made authentic historical dolls costumes before her blindness had made it impossible to do close work."
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Doncaster Community Archive: Unlocking the Past
The key to unlock Doncaster’s archives for the community was provided by the community members themselves. They were asked to lend their mementos – postcards, photographs, other memorabilia – which were scanned into a database and catalogued. They brought them to branch libraries and community centres on 15 local history mornings, which set the agenda for the next part of the Unlocking the Past project.
A European Regional Development Fund grant paid for a development worker, and Doncaster Council paid for the services of a Workers’ Educational Association tutor for local history courses, resulting in four local history groups which are still going strong.
Since the project was launched in May 2002, the archive has gained more than 2,000 images, available on CD-ROM and with copies at every library, school and heritage society in Doncaster .
Unlocking The Past has given the communities a sense of place and identity, and its younger members an understanding of the history that helped shaped where they live, and it has also given them a chance for ICT and basic skills training. But the most important gains have been the digital archive and the community participation which have helped community members enter the historical aspects of their town for the first time.
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Reading for Health: the Bibliotherapy Project, Calderdale
The ‘Bibliotherapy’ project demonstrates clearly the health and learning benefits of reading. Professionals in Calderdale worked with mental health groups, abuse self help groups, the elderly, youth groups, Sure Start and others to promote the benefits of reading for relaxation, reducing stress, anxiety and depression. Reading groups met in local libraries and other locations, with outstanding success.
Innovative library services have been developed to engage socially excluded people, the profile and use of libraries has increased, the value and benefits of reading have been promoted, and new opportunities have been created for social contact through reading for people affected by isolation and depression. There have been other benefits too: one member joined a computer class so that she could email other members; others visited the theatre together. As one participant said, "Now when I have a crisis, I sit down with a book for half an hour. Reading calms me down, then I can manage."
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Time for Kids: Working with Fathers in Prison
Time for Kids, a project run by Stockton Library and the Prison Education Service, allows inmate fathers to attend creative writing and story-telling workshops and then read their own stories, or those of others, into audiotapes. Story sacks have been created by some 44 dads since 2000, which include art-work, their tapes and toys for their children.
All the fathers and families involved have stated that the scheme brought them closer together and kept the bond between father and children alive during the period of separation. The project also helps to improve the literacy levels of the inmate fathers, as well as contributing to their rehabilitation into the community when they leave prison.
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Breathing Life into Local Communities, Calne, Wiltshire
A new library in the centre of Calne in Wiltshire has been praised for its contribution to the local community and to neighbourhood regeneration. Following the demolition of an old factory in the town, Calne New Library was built on the empty site to accommodate the needs of the rapidly expanding local population. The library has been acclaimed for its striking architecture, and a variety of new services are on offer, including internet terminals, homework clubs, display space and many more books, all of which have led to a 72% increase in library membership. The library is now perceived as an excellent community facility, with a thriving readers group, children’s activities and performance events all taking place in the new spacious and light interior.
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