Behind the Scenes… Document Reception

27th October 2011

Today we start a behind-the-scenes tour of our current branches, based at County Hall and the History Centre. Hopefully by seeing where we are working you will get a better idea of the types of things we do. When we move to the Hive we will let you see behind-the-scenes photos of our facilities there too, and we’re sure you will see the massive improvement!

Today we start with Document Reception:

What is it? Document Reception was originally designed to be exactly that – the place where we received any new deposits of records, ready for sorting. Since we have grown as an office and are struggling for space, this room is now also the place where the sorting, listing and cataloguing of records happens. As you can see from the photographs it can sometimes be a bit of a competition for space.

Who works there?

Maggie (Head of Cataloguing and Head of Repository), Liz (CALM Archivist) and Kat (Worcester City Project Archivist) work down here permanently. When we have Archives Assistants working to catalogue collections they join them down here too.

What will this room be like in the Hive? When we get to the Hive we will have a lot more room to carry out the essential work that takes place here, with a whole suite of rooms designed for specific activities. These are:

Document Reception – for items to be checked when we first receive them before they are then moved to quarantine or the strongrooms;

Quarantine room – for items which need to be isolated and cleaned or treated before entering our strongrooms;

Cleaning and Sorting room – sometimes documents can be very dirty when they come to us, or sometimes we just have big collections that need space for sorting;

Cataloguing and Packaging room – where work will be carried out to prepare online, accessible catalogues for the public to use;

and finally a Conservation room for the treatment of records requiring preservation or conservation work.

The new space and facilities the Hive will provide mean that our staff will be able to work a lot more effectively.

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