Unlocking OUMNH’s glass plate negative collection

3 August – 11 September (six weeks)
supervised by Danielle Czerkaszyn

Project summary

This placement supports two important strands of activity in the Museum’s collections strategy:

Improve collections discoverability and accessibility through a programme of collections digitisation.
Devise and implement robust storage solutions that open the collections to a new era of investigation and improve the quality of collection care.

Project details

This is an exciting opportunity to dive into an unexplored and uncatalogued collection of glass plate negatives in the Museum’s Library & Archive collection. An early form of photography, these slides were projected in the Museum to teach students and accompany lectures given by various scientific, natural history and photographic societies.

This project aims to document and digitise these slides to increase discoverability and access, while rehousing this collection to ensure its preservation for the future.

During their placement students will:

Work with the Librarian and Archivist receiving all appropriate training and protective equipment
Clean, organise, label and rehouse the glass plate negatives to ensure their long-term preservation and accessibility for research
Complete an inventory of the collection with date entry into an Excel spreadsheet
Digitise the glass slides so the images can be made freely available online

Selection criteria

Essential

Ability to handle fragile glass material and work with dusty objects
Attention to detail
Familiarity with Microsoft Office applications, particularly Excel
Ability to carry light loads (<5kg)
Ability to work with a partner, without close supervision on repetitive tasks

Desirable

Experience working in a library, archive or museum setting
Experience using a digital camera

Outcomes for students

This project provides particularly valuable experience for students interested in a career in libraries, archives or museums. You will gain:

Opportunity to handle uncatalogued material which offers the potential for interesting and important discoveries in the collections
Experience in the organisation and management of archival collections
Learning good collections care and preventative conservation practices
Good documentation and IT skills learnt in a museum context and applicable to future research career

Reasonable adjustments

The museum is committed to making reasonable adjustments to its summer placements to make sure that students with disabilities or health conditions are not substantially disadvantaged. If you are concerned about meeting the selection criteria for a project of interest, or completing relevant tasks, please get in touch with Hannah Betts before submitting your application to discuss possible adjustments to the project: summerplacements@oum.ox.ac.uk.