Audience engagement

How we communicate the importance of our collections, their relevance to a worldwide audience, and promote access to them is a key part of our work. This month has seen lots of activity on that front with exhibitions, talks and filming all taking place and helping to bring LHSA into contact with people from many walks of life. Keep a look out for us over the coming weeks!

Patient artwork from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) is featuring in two exhibitions – one at the Djanogly Art Gallery in Nottingham, the other at Halle St Pierre in Paris, and reproductions of this artwork are due to feature at the Scottish Mental Health Art and Film Festival at Summerhall, Edinburgh, from 5 to 19 October.

‘Melancholia’ by John Willis Mason, copy on show at Summerhall in October

The Wellcome Trust (WT) has interviewed researcher Dr Gayle Davis about her work on infertility case notes held at LHSA, conserved with WT funding. The film will be available on their website. Next week, items from the REH will be the subject of a three-part series of BBC Radio Scotland interviews, to be broadcast in November, to commemorate the Hospital’s bicentenary.

Archivist Laura has been talking about the history of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh’s finances from its beginnings in the 1720s, until the introduction of the NHS in 1948, to former employees of the Bank of Scotland. Today she is talking about the Archive’s use of social media in engaging audiences to an Archives and Records Association Training Day in Aberdeen, ensuring that we share best practice with colleagues in the archive sector, and learn from them too.