Away Day Display

Special Collections were asked to contribute to the Finance Department Away Day by giving a talk on the history of DMU as one of several optional activities for finance staff.

IMG_20170719_103529 We started with a warm-up activity based on old coinage – at least one person knew his bob from his groat and his sovereign from his crown, without needing the crib sheet!

Thoroughly in a historical mood, we then moved on to a presentation about the history of DMU since 1870. This was followed by the chance to look at a display of material from the Archive collection, illustrating the range of items we hold.

The display included our first register of students, press cuttings albums, examples of staff and student work, annual reports, prospectuses, student and staff magazines, a piece of Victorian physics demonstration equipment, events brochures, and the School of Architecture scarf from the 1940s.

We also found a few files of finance work to show the team how much their jobs had changed! Year end certainly seems to have been completed more quickly back then.

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The Special Collections team are available to give talks and tours relating to the history of the institution, both internally and externally – please contact archives@dmu.ac.uk to discuss.

Katharine

About Katharine Short

When I was 13 every careers questionnaire I did at school suggested I become an archivist. In rebellion I studied History of Art at Cambridge and the Courtauld Institute before giving in to the inevitable and undertaking a qualification in Archives Administration at Aberystwyth University. I worked at King’s College London Archives and the London Metropolitan Archives before becoming the Archivist here at DMU in January 2013. My role is hugely varied: answering enquiries and assisting researchers, sorting, cataloguing, cleaning and packaging archival material, managing our environmentally controlled storage areas, giving seminars, talks and tours, researching aspects of University history, liaising with potential donors and advocating for the importance of archives within the organisation. I am one of those incredibly fortunate people who can say ‘I love my job’ and really mean it.
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