Back by popular demand

Today saw the second instalment of the ‘History Room’ – a pop-up museum in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital to celebrate its 200^thbirthday.

Laura, our Archivist, and Artlink intern Emma setting up the History Room

We took part in the History Room in July, on the anniversary of the first patient admitted all those years ago, and it was such a success that we were asked to come back again. This time the History Room coincided with the Hospital’s summer fete, so as well as items from our collection illustrating aspects of Royal Edinburgh history, there was a pipe band, a barbeque and cake on offer (not in the same room as the archive material of course!).

The LHSA display

Despite the absence of summer weather, there was a good turnout and it was another great opportunity to talk to patients, staff and members of the local community about the LHSA collections and the services that we have on offer.

Laura talking to History Room visitors

Detail of the LHSA display: four drawings of the Hospital by a patient

 

Objects held by the Hospital displayed in another part of the History Room 

A table set with Hospital crockery and cutlery; objects held by the Royal Edinburgh

 

 

Not content to restrict such a great event to the Hospital's bicentenary year, we're already signed up to come back for next year's fete!

 

 

 

 

Back to (archive) school...

This week, our Project Archivist Louise experienced LHSA from a different point of view…

Back in summer 2009, I started to volunteer at LHSA in order to gain experience of archive work before deciding to apply for professional training. I was LHSA’s first long-term volunteer:  by the end of my placement, I managed to arrange, rehouse and catalogue a substantial paper and object collection (http://www.lhsa.lib.ed.ac.uk/collections/GD18/gd18_index.htm). In fact, I liked it so much that I returned in 2011 to volunteer with another two personal collections, one centring on mental health oral histories and another on respiratory health.

Since my first contact with LHSA, we have offered numerous volunteer placements (and recently two paid internships): many volunteers have an interest in or are already undertaking professional qualifications in information management or conservation. Now, those who contact the Centre for Research Collections (CRC) to volunteer with us are offered an archive’ taster day’ through which they learn about the varied work that LHSA does and the records that we care for. I think that this day is a brilliant idea – it gives prospective volunteers a chance to look at different aspects of our role to see if an archive environment is really for them. Conversely, archive staff can make sure that they offer the right opportunities to the right people.

Looking at the programmes that our Archivist, Laura, prepares for our one-day volunteers, I’ve always been more than a little jealous because these days were not offered when I joined LHSA as a volunteer cataloguer. So, when Iain Phillips came in for a taster day, Laura suggested that I join in as well…

After a tour of the stores, the day started with training on research for archive enquiries. Although I have been working at LHSA for almost a year now, I catalogue very specific collections, meaning that I don’t undertake general enquiries work or deal on a regular basis with a large range of our records. Researching family history enquiries with the help of Stephen, our Archive Assistant, taught Iain and I about the trail that is followed to track down individual patients, from patient and staff registers to admission papers and case notes. The day continued with an introduction to conservation photography, using LHSA’s digital SLR camera to help Stephen to take photographs of letters written from the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for an upcoming exhibition.

Iain and I busy with research on enquiries….

After lunch, we started work on indexing the casebooks of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital. These casebooks are heavily used by medical and family historians, so creating a searchable index to them allows us not only to find individual patients extremely quickly, but also to search details such as age on admission, patient occupation and medical condition. You can read more on the project in last week’s blog post: http://lhsa.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/royal-edinburgh-hospital-reh-case-book.html.

Then it was on to the Digital Imaging Unit (DIU) to look at their work in digitising CRC collections for preservation, access and promotion. If you would like to see some of the images produced by DIU, they can be found here: http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/

Finally, I introduced Iain to the neurosurgical case notes with which I work (http://www.lhsa.lib.ed.ac.uk/projects/Cataloguingcasenotes.htm), this time wearing my hat as a member of LHSA staff! I had a wonderful day, reminding me of how lucky I am to work in such an enthusiastic and resourceful team - and with such generous and enthusiastic volunteers!

Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) - Case Book Database Update

It’s been a while since we brought you news of what’s happening on this front, and a lot has happened since the project started in May 2012. For anyone new to the project, we (well, strictly speaking, our volunteers!) are creating a database which lists every patient admitted to the REH from 1840 - 1932. The information is taken from the case books, approximately A4-sized books each containing between about  800 and 950 pages.  From volume 25 onwards, there is a two page pro forma to be completed for each patient where the physical and mental state of each patient on admission is recorded, as well as some basic biographical information. There are a further two pages assigned to each patient to note the progress of their case. If a patient was in for a long time, extra pages were allocated further on in the volume, and sometimes on into several volumes. Prior to 1840, case notes were not kept; from the 1930s onwards, the modern system of individual folder-based case notes was introduced.

Page 2 of a patient entry in a case book, with description of mental and physical state (LHB7/51/66)

Almost all of the case books between 1874 and 1894 (ref: LHB7/51/25-61), and a few earlier ones, have now been added to the database and this translates to 5,784 entries in the database. For each patient, their name, age, occupation and diagnosis are all recorded, as well as dates of admission and discharge or death. The occupations listed reveal the wide range of people who received treatment at the Hospital: a Lieutenant in the Bengal Cavalry, housewives, tailors, drapers, medical practitioners, blacksmiths, domestic servants, governesses, teachers, railway porters, seamen, a conjurer, hawkers, students, millworkers, dressmakers, nurses, foresters, publicans and a Baptist minister…a multitude of skills which the Hospital put to good use in its early forms of occupational therapy.

Page 1 of a patient entry in a case book, with biographical info, including occupation (LHB7/51/66)

Over 11 volunteers have worked on the project so far, and we’d like to extend our thanks to all of them for their hard work, palaeography and detective skills! 

There are over 80 volumes left to be entered into the database – if you’d like to volunteer to work on the project, please contact our Student Support Officer, Serena Fredrick, serena.fredrick@ed.ac.uk