On the Beat at HALS

Project open day 3 September 2013

A badly damaged document
The leaf casting machine filled with water and paper pulp
The document in the leaf casting machine
Jeff Cargill with the repaired document
Katie Morley demonstrating new repair methods
Paper repair demonstration
A display of repaired documents
Tea and cake !

On Tuesday 3 September 2013 a good number of visitors came to Hertfordshire Archives to find out what the On The Beat project is all about.

The main attraction was a demonstration by Jeff Cargill, HALS Conservator and Katie Morley, a member of the project conservation team. Two groups of people packed into the conservation studio to find out more about how the unpromisingly soggy Police records on which the project is based are being rescued from oblivion. They were shown how a leaf casting machine can repair insect damaged documents which seem to have as many holes as paper. They also heard about some of the new technologies which have been used to conserve parts of the archive.

Visitors were also able to find out more about this website and the research that has been carried out to bring the project to life. There was also a display of original documents relating to policing in Hertfordshire and one of conserved documents.

The event concluded with a lecture, ‘Walking the Beat: Policing in WWI’ given by Dr Sarah Turner , Curator of Bishop’s Stortford Museum.

This page was added on 04/09/2013.

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