Twelve students enjoyed our latest work experience day at The Archive Centre. Pupils from Years 11-13 enjoyed learning about working in a heritage environment. They learnt how the archivists catalogue items in the collection, including how every document needs to have a unique reference number in order to identify and locate it. Next, they had a go at cataloguing a series of cards which represented documents. Students found that some of the items were easier to catalogue than others and we talked about the use of prevalence with archives. Towards the end of the morning students also learnt how to handle documents before having a go transcribing some documents included in a bundle of 17^th and 18^th century cures and recipes. These transcripts will be used in our children’s activity at Norwich Cathedral Family Fest on 16 August.

After lunch the students were split into 3 groups and carried out a range of activities to put their new-found skills into practice. One group learnt how to clean maps with a smoke sponge to gently rub off surface dirt, before moving on to re-packing newly arrived documents into archival packaging. The second group worked on cataloguing some of the documents included in the bundle they had transcribed earlier. The final group learnt how to use the digital camera and software to photograph documents. Working with our conservation technician they were taught how to adjust the white balance, capture an image and edit it, and how to store the digital image.  

Throughout the day pupils also had a chance to create a number of tweets for us explaining what they were learning and working on and highlighting some of the documents they had seen. These tweets were posted for Norfolk Day, using hashtags.

Overall, the pupils had a great day saying their knowledge of working in the heritage sector had improved from an average of 3.50 out of 10 to 8 out of 10. We wish them well with gaining employment in the heritage sector in the future.