History of BLH&AG and the Burley Archive
The Burley Local History & Archive Group originated from a series of evening classes given by Margaret Warwick in 1983. Under the auspices of the Workers Educational Association (WEA) Margaret, a history lecturer at Bradford College, taught a number of Burley residents about researching local history. Her husband Dennis Warwick, a sociology lecturer at Leeds University, acted as chair of the group.
Initially their collections of materials - research findings, books, photographs, maps etc., were located in a room at St. Mary's Parish Church. In 2000 they transferred to the rear room of Burley Library, Grange Road, Burley in Wharfedale. Margaret established an Accession Book & Card Index System to keep track of items donated to the Group. Digitally the History Group contributed webpages to the original village website (c1994-2023). These pages formed the basis of the content for this website. In addition they bought a laptop & portable hard drive (PHD) to store their digital files.
Sadly in 2010 Margaret died. It would seem that the people who carried on the Group didn't understand Margaret's system of Accession & Indexing. The filing of records broke down, to the point by 2018 that there were numerous boxes of unsorted files that cluttered up the room. The laptop & PHD was in a similar muddled state.
I had joined the group in 2017 to further my own personal research into different aspects of Burley District history. (Most of the content of the Burley Archive website is the result of my research).
In 2019 I became chair of the group. I hadn't planned on becoming so heavily involved, but needs must.
I'm a researcher not an archivist. But I, like many researchers before me, couldn't find relevant material, as there was no comprehensive inventory or catalogue nor any cross-referencing of the collections. Neither was there any system in place to add new records to the Burley Archive.
Knowing nothing about the process of archives & archiving I had to do a bit of research!
Taking advice from the Bradford Archive & Museum Development Yorkshire (now md north) and with help from a number of friends, we transferred all the content of Margaret's paper-based Accession Book & Card Index System to spreadsheets. Any other filing lists i.e. word docs, pdfs etc., were also converted to spreadsheet format.
Doing this, though admirable, didn't solve the problem of locating where physical items actually were within the room, even if we now knew we had them. We have x4 filing cabinets, x2 map chests & lots of shelving. And what of new material or the boxes of unsorted archive material, how were they to be filed?
Standard archiving begins with "a Collection" from a known "Source". Whoever gives you an item, that item becomes part of their collection. Within someone's collection you can then sort on "Subject". But the whole collection from the same source is physically kept together.
By knowing the source/collection, you gain a whole host of useful information i.e. who owns the copyright, cross-references to other items in the collection and/or the rest of the Archive, age of the item etc.
Unfortunately previous regimes didn't understand this. Since 2010 they'd been sorting on subject alone. Where the subject is in the eye of the beholder, different people will file in different ways. The information about the source & collection has in many cases been stripped away from the physical item.
In 2020 Covid-19 hit, the work in the Burley Archive ground to a halt. With no or limited access allowed for the best part of 2 years, it gave the History Group time to think about the way forward.
During Covid-19, we reviewed the spreadsheets & realised that none of the shelving had any kind of itemised listing. The shelving contains books, folders & box files. The contents of the folders & box files weren't listed either.
Alongside which the x4 filing cabinets contents weren't up to date, nor in any kind of logical order. The main map chest likewise.
We needed to find a way to bring some order to the chaos. The plan from 2022 onwards was to:
a) Begin an itemised Inventory of the shelving units, using a numbering system that fixed an item's location & write up the information in a spreadsheet. Where the item was a folder or box file, the contents would be listed as sub-items within the fixed location.
b) Re-arrange the filing cabinet folders with subject headings that match the digital content directories & folders. An Inventory of the filing cabinets would follow when most of the shelving was completed.
c) Begin an Inventory of the main map chest - drawer by drawer. (A lot of the content are not maps, just items that are larger than the standard A4 or fullscap filing cabinet folders).
d) List all the framed pictures & awards stored on top of the filing cabinets.
e) List & photograph all the objects. These are stored in several boxes on the shelving. (Will be included in the shelving Inventory).
f) Begin the process of identifying sources & their collections within the existing spreadsheets & matching items to the Inventory.
g) New materials & unsorted archive boxes. Revive the Accession Book - if sources known then add to collections, if not then identify likely subjects & list those within a spreadsheet. Add physical "Linking Sheets" to the items - list cross-references to either other physical items and/or the digital content.
The result of all this work will be a hybrid system of archiving held together with spreadsheets. New content will be based on Sources/Collections. Old content with unknown sources on Subjects.
None of this could happen without help.
Every Tuesday afternoon for 11 months of the year since 2018, a few Heritage volunteers from The Arts Society Saltaire have been coming to the Burley Archive. They are meticulous in what they do. Their reliability of attendance means they can be asked to carry out a task & will complete it.
From 2022 to 2023 the TASS volunteers completed the main Inventory of the shelving. (Box Files were itemised by members of the history group). They then moved on to creating an Inventory of the "Religion" filing cabinet draw. In 2024 they began extracting the x2 filing cabinet drawers worth of papers of the Burley Community Council (a local pressure group), itemising them & moving them to box files on the shelving.
As of October 2024, items (a), (d) and (e) are complete. Items (b), (c), (f) and (g) we're on with, but need help. Anyone interested please get in touch.
Burley Archive Inventory - physical content
Burley Archive Folders - digital content. Approximately 54Gb.
With the Burley Archive room now being sorted, attention has turned to this website. Its only this month (October 2024) that the History Group have gained edit rights to this website. The other one we've always had control of as it was my research outlet. The plan moving forward is to transfer all of the content from the Burley Archive website to this one & let mine go into hibernation. If you're interested in helping with this please get in touch via the Contact Form on the Home page.
Peter Grinham
Chair BLH&AG
Initially their collections of materials - research findings, books, photographs, maps etc., were located in a room at St. Mary's Parish Church. In 2000 they transferred to the rear room of Burley Library, Grange Road, Burley in Wharfedale. Margaret established an Accession Book & Card Index System to keep track of items donated to the Group. Digitally the History Group contributed webpages to the original village website (c1994-2023). These pages formed the basis of the content for this website. In addition they bought a laptop & portable hard drive (PHD) to store their digital files.
Sadly in 2010 Margaret died. It would seem that the people who carried on the Group didn't understand Margaret's system of Accession & Indexing. The filing of records broke down, to the point by 2018 that there were numerous boxes of unsorted files that cluttered up the room. The laptop & PHD was in a similar muddled state.
I had joined the group in 2017 to further my own personal research into different aspects of Burley District history. (Most of the content of the Burley Archive website is the result of my research).
In 2019 I became chair of the group. I hadn't planned on becoming so heavily involved, but needs must.
I'm a researcher not an archivist. But I, like many researchers before me, couldn't find relevant material, as there was no comprehensive inventory or catalogue nor any cross-referencing of the collections. Neither was there any system in place to add new records to the Burley Archive.
Knowing nothing about the process of archives & archiving I had to do a bit of research!
Taking advice from the Bradford Archive & Museum Development Yorkshire (now md north) and with help from a number of friends, we transferred all the content of Margaret's paper-based Accession Book & Card Index System to spreadsheets. Any other filing lists i.e. word docs, pdfs etc., were also converted to spreadsheet format.
Doing this, though admirable, didn't solve the problem of locating where physical items actually were within the room, even if we now knew we had them. We have x4 filing cabinets, x2 map chests & lots of shelving. And what of new material or the boxes of unsorted archive material, how were they to be filed?
Standard archiving begins with "a Collection" from a known "Source". Whoever gives you an item, that item becomes part of their collection. Within someone's collection you can then sort on "Subject". But the whole collection from the same source is physically kept together.
By knowing the source/collection, you gain a whole host of useful information i.e. who owns the copyright, cross-references to other items in the collection and/or the rest of the Archive, age of the item etc.
Unfortunately previous regimes didn't understand this. Since 2010 they'd been sorting on subject alone. Where the subject is in the eye of the beholder, different people will file in different ways. The information about the source & collection has in many cases been stripped away from the physical item.
In 2020 Covid-19 hit, the work in the Burley Archive ground to a halt. With no or limited access allowed for the best part of 2 years, it gave the History Group time to think about the way forward.
During Covid-19, we reviewed the spreadsheets & realised that none of the shelving had any kind of itemised listing. The shelving contains books, folders & box files. The contents of the folders & box files weren't listed either.
Alongside which the x4 filing cabinets contents weren't up to date, nor in any kind of logical order. The main map chest likewise.
We needed to find a way to bring some order to the chaos. The plan from 2022 onwards was to:
a) Begin an itemised Inventory of the shelving units, using a numbering system that fixed an item's location & write up the information in a spreadsheet. Where the item was a folder or box file, the contents would be listed as sub-items within the fixed location.
b) Re-arrange the filing cabinet folders with subject headings that match the digital content directories & folders. An Inventory of the filing cabinets would follow when most of the shelving was completed.
c) Begin an Inventory of the main map chest - drawer by drawer. (A lot of the content are not maps, just items that are larger than the standard A4 or fullscap filing cabinet folders).
d) List all the framed pictures & awards stored on top of the filing cabinets.
e) List & photograph all the objects. These are stored in several boxes on the shelving. (Will be included in the shelving Inventory).
f) Begin the process of identifying sources & their collections within the existing spreadsheets & matching items to the Inventory.
g) New materials & unsorted archive boxes. Revive the Accession Book - if sources known then add to collections, if not then identify likely subjects & list those within a spreadsheet. Add physical "Linking Sheets" to the items - list cross-references to either other physical items and/or the digital content.
The result of all this work will be a hybrid system of archiving held together with spreadsheets. New content will be based on Sources/Collections. Old content with unknown sources on Subjects.
None of this could happen without help.
Every Tuesday afternoon for 11 months of the year since 2018, a few Heritage volunteers from The Arts Society Saltaire have been coming to the Burley Archive. They are meticulous in what they do. Their reliability of attendance means they can be asked to carry out a task & will complete it.
From 2022 to 2023 the TASS volunteers completed the main Inventory of the shelving. (Box Files were itemised by members of the history group). They then moved on to creating an Inventory of the "Religion" filing cabinet draw. In 2024 they began extracting the x2 filing cabinet drawers worth of papers of the Burley Community Council (a local pressure group), itemising them & moving them to box files on the shelving.
As of October 2024, items (a), (d) and (e) are complete. Items (b), (c), (f) and (g) we're on with, but need help. Anyone interested please get in touch.
Burley Archive Inventory - physical content
Burley Archive Folders - digital content. Approximately 54Gb.
With the Burley Archive room now being sorted, attention has turned to this website. Its only this month (October 2024) that the History Group have gained edit rights to this website. The other one we've always had control of as it was my research outlet. The plan moving forward is to transfer all of the content from the Burley Archive website to this one & let mine go into hibernation. If you're interested in helping with this please get in touch via the Contact Form on the Home page.
Peter Grinham
Chair BLH&AG