The working life of Museum of London

Part 2: Expanding our Engagement

By 2005 the London Archaeological Archive & Research Centre had established itself as both the home of London’s Archaeology and a centre of excellence for collections care management. Off the back of 2005’s Conservation Award the next step was to develop our levels of engagement within London’s communities.

2005’s big event was our first Community Archaeology Project based just next to our archive in Shoreditch Park. Involving over 700 school children plus many family groups on weekends, the project brought together the chance to learn about local history (the site was a residential street destroyed during the Blitz), to learn archaeological techniques (sessions involved both excavation and finds washing) and to have fun whilst doing so.

The following year we moved a little further North and investigated the Tudor Tower at Bruce Castle Museum in Tottenham. Another major success, involving hundreds more local children and discovering unknown aspects of the tower and building’s history. Learning through active participation was certainly proving to be the way forward.

In 2007 our community excavation took place in Southwark, inside the grounds of Michael Faraday Primary School. This project enabled children to connect directly with the history of their school whilst still acquiring basic skills in discovery and interpretation.

Whilst these projects were going on, we also began to explore new methods of sharing our projects with the wider online community. Photographs from our community projects were added to sets on Flickr, whilst videos were posted to YouTube during the course of the Michael Faraday project.

Back at the LAARC itself, our community engagement was equally expanding in terms of our range of volunteers. In 2006, the “Archive Volunteer Learning Project” began, running until 2007. This project was managed by a conservator working with volunteers on improving the collections and a learning officer, making sure volunteers were developing new useful basic skills. Links and partnerships were made with organisations providing new sources of recruitment and consequently the project involved a wider range of people including long-term unemployed, those with special learning needs and rehabilitated offenders.

The archive was progressing nicely but there was still room for improvement.  Our next focus would be on ways for everyone to feel included.

Next month, “2008 – 2012: Volunteer Inclusion / Visitor Inclusion”

Click here to catch up on part 1: 2002-2005, a look back at our early years