History Project is an audio-visual archive supported by BECTU (Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematography & Theatre Union) protecting and continually recording an industries oral histories in an ever growing 700+ interviews with various professionals.
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Volunteering as Researcher and Assistant for the project I was immersed in life stories from all walks of life, discovering the histories of movements and industries and consolidating them in preparation for digitisation, transcription and profiling. For much of the material, there was little standardised organisation to the material spread between offices and storage holdings and little assistance available to the current volunteer pool in achieving greater access for the stories. This both opened up the project as a case study for my interests in digitisation and access research as well as opened up an opportunity to proactively use my time to leave a wider, skilled volunteer pool.
Taking the lead in putting primary material elements into the volunteer recruitment process, I also moved forward with refreshing the project appearance by designing new logos and flyers and building a targeted face-to-face recruitment presentation for events such as the Freelancers Fair 2015. Flyers (left) connected directly with the primary transcribed material with different quotations across three versions. Presentation displays (below) utilised footage clips, images, transcriptions and With all this in place, actively participating, skilled volunteers where successfully attracted to the archive, attending follow-up information events where long-standing archive patrons where able to work from the knowledge and material driven position other volunteer presenters and I where able to achieve at these events. |