Research Sessions at Scarborough Library

By Heather French

As part of the ‘From Local to Global’ project Scarborough library has hosted research skills sessions. These have been well attended by enthusiastic citizen researchers. The sessions have been led by Outreach Librarian Angela Kale, where she introduced primary, secondary and tertiary sources. The participants were asked about any ideas they’d like to bring to the project and the following topic suggestions were raised:-

• A comparison between Brighton and Scarborough

• The fishing industry and a link to ‘The Herring Girls’

• Social history of the time – clothing, art and culture

• Theatre and entertainment of the time – Gala-Land, Aquarium and Arcadia

• Upstairs/Downstairs culture and domestic servants (connected to Sewerby Hall)

• Congo – what it was like then and now - Biodiversity

The participants were shown to tables where many primary sources were on view, including maps and original tour guides. The tour guides were dated from 1787 to the present day. The differences in languages were highlighted between the aristocratic classes and the working class trips, showing a different level of education. It was also pointed out that the library holds newspapers on microfilm ranging from 1855 to the present. Angela mentioned the meteorological records, census, and contextual documents, minutes from the Liberal Club (now the site of Lord Rosebery pub), Ward Lock tourist guides and workhouse records. Everyone was interested to learn that the only free medical care at the time available was at the work house!

Photographic records were available to view and these can be dated by transport, fashion and buildings. There were personal photographs of families too. It was pointed out that the photographer would have kept a wardrobe of clothing at his studio for families to wear for the photos. This would have given the customers an air of affluence.

There were theatre posters for the researchers to view and aerial photographs of Scarborough, where landscape changes were noticed. The library also showed a number of large scale maps dated as the 1890s.

The library service online services were then introduced via a large screen. Tightening of searching online was raised using critical reasoning skills and the following resources were highlighted:-

• Ancestry.com

• Access to research

• Find my past

• British newspaper archive

• Census

The sessions proved very popular.

About the author

Heather French - is an Outreach Librarian based at Scarborough Library. She has worked on a number of joint projects involving NYCC libraries and other cultural organisations along the Yorkshire coast. After hours, she organises Books by the Beach - Scarborough’s annual book festival.