5th December 2023.
For my first foray into everything archival, I joined a group of other postgraduate students at The National Archives to take part in one of their Postgraduate Archive Skills Training (PAST) days. As a complete novice in approaching archives from a postgrad research position, this was an invaluable few hours which equipped me with practical and experiential knowledge.
Once all equipped with a quick cup of tea, a friendly introduction and our reader cards, we were taken on a merry tour of the building and shown some practical elements of where we pick documents up and the equipment we use to keep them safe. Though I am sure I would eventually have found my way around without a tour, I have no doubt that the sneaky tips and tricks shared by the wonderful staff acting as our tour guides will become invaluable over time. One key takeaway was the desk hidden away in a corner of their library section.
Following the tour we had a practical workshop where we were encouraged to handle many documents which were exceptionally large, fragile, incomplete, etc. in order to better understand the individual need and requirements of each article. This was a great chance to learn more about the materiality of documents in archives and get up close to some elements that I might come across in future searches. Over this time, I spoke at length with staff about the likelihood of finding the animal crop up in ways other then content, and what this may mean. 17% of the articles held at The National Archives are parchment; a material made from (usually) sheep, goat or deer skin. When looking at such items up close, it was fascinating to see the difference in texture and the ways in which parchment deteriorates compared to paper.
Whilst there for the day, time was provided to search, order and handle some documents which may be beneficial to our personal research. From this, I realised that the National Archives perhaps isn't the place for my research at this stage - though I didn't spend a large amount of time searching the catalogue, I did discover that all of the documents it showed as relevant are held at off site locations. There was an overwhelming encouragement to discuss our research topics with no short helping of thoughts as to where might be a good place to rummage around next.
So, although the National Archives may not be full to brim of all things lupine related, the day did leave me with much more knowledge on practical document handling and questions of how else the animal may show up in archives...
I wonder if there is any such thing as a wolf skin parchment out there?
