Library & Muniments Committee
At the AGM in May, Dr. Bob Spain gave a presentation on the Committee’s work. Reproduced here is an overview of his talk.
Most of you will know that the Society’s Library is housed in Maidstone Museum, where most of the Society’s artefacts are also stored and displayed. The Library and Muniments Committee has 10 members, meets regularly during the year in the Society’s Library, and provides reports to the Council on its activities and developments. The Honorary Librarian is Dr. Frank Panton and the Honorary Curator Dr. Mike Still There is, in addition, an extensive number of people who give time and labour, including specialist skills, to support the Committee in its numerous activities.
The terms of reference of the Committee understandably relate to the custodianship of the Society’s collections of books, visual records, manuscripts, artefacts, and the development and maintenance of websites. These terms include acquiring and acting as custodian of the collections that include artefacts, journals, books, pamphlets and ephemera of the history and archaeology of Kent, its cities, towns, villages, churches and buildings together with a large number of old photographs, drawings, paintings and manuscript notebooks and records bequeathed by notable Kentish historians and antiquaries.
The library is open to members seven days per week on presentation of a KAS Membership card, and to non-members by appointment.
The Society has a valuable collection of artefacts within the Museum, many of which are currently displayed. One of the first tasks of the Honorary Curator over the last few years was to create a computer accession register, by extracting information on the KAS collection from index cards that were mixed indiscriminately within Maidstone Museum’s own accession records. Using this new KAS accession database, he has been able to answer queries received from Members and Non-Members of the Society. These range from requests for information on objects known to be in the collection, to general questions as to whether we possess any items of a particular type or from a particular area of the County. He also gives permission for researchers to study items in the KAS collection.
Fig 3: The carefully buried Iron Age bones from Northumberland Bottom near Gravesend.
The other important task is to ensure that the objects are properly conserved. On a day-to-day basis we rely on the humidity and temperature controls within the Museum, but remedial conservation work is still needed at times. Since most artefacts in the KAS collection are in storage with Maidstone Museum’s own collections – only a limited number can be displayed at any one time – the Honorary Curator is happy to accept the advice of the Keeper of Human History who has direct access to the material. Joint inspections of KAS material occur to assess conservation needs.
The Society also has a collection of 42 portraits of the Twysden family, dating from the sixteenth century onwards, which are displayed at Bradbourne House, East Malling, where they may be visited by Members of the Society. This collection was bequeathed to the Society by Sir John Twysden, and accepted in 1938 following the death of Sir John, the last of his line.
There are a great number of people who voluntarily provide regular help to the Committee. A recent count showed there to be at least 26 volunteers. They work singly or in groups on various projects, for example currently these include: books, shelf cleaning and maintenance – as you know we have a book collection of 3500 national journals and county journals, including Kent, Surrey and Sussex journals and a similar number of Kent Topography and general books.
We also have a group of volunteers working on Visual Records and data entry. They also index new acquisitions, when our computers and catalogues are essential, and do work relating to our manuscript collections including sorting and indexing the Hussey files of genealogical and family history information and the Gordon Ward papers. Finally, they are involved in updating the websites, of which the KAS has two, which we often identify simply as ‘org’ and ‘ac’.
The ‘org’ site has a research section managed by Ted Connell. This is fast developing and growing and the statistics given here will probably be outdated! The research section now contains over 6500 individual web pages and during the month of April this year, visitors entered the site via a total of over 3000 separate pages. Monumental Inscriptions of Kent churchyards are being added to every month and the on-line Archaeologia Cantiana continues to grow – over 1000 visitors consulted the ‘Introductory Page’ to the contents of 123 volumes during April 2004. Transcriptions of Leland Duncan’s Medieval and Tudor Wills are continually being added to the site and the introductory page received 1007 visits during the same month. In addition, visual records are being created and added to the website.
Visits to the ‘org’ website come from all over the world, and during April 2004, the total number of visits was nearly 18,000, with a daily average of 591. The number of pages visited was over 74,000, with a daily average of nearly 2500.
Project Manager of the ‘ac’ website is Denis Astley. This site has been established for academic research use, and the reputation and integrity of the site is therefore paramount. The Library book stock catalogue is continually being updated and an On-line Catalogue is currently being created. Both of these are entered by a professional librarian, thus ensuring the integrity of the databases and the correct entry style. This year’s records catalogue is being added to. Electronic publishing on this website, with Joy Sage maintaining the database, provides a great potential for the Society. Currently databases are being entered of Maidstone Society’s material held at the County Archives, and of access to stored material. An artefacts record has been completed.
In addition to all these working groups, there is a continuous rota of volunteers attached to the Library during opening hours, to help and advise Members who wish to access the library stock and collections.
Under the leadership of Frank Panton, recent achievements have included transforming the Library with more appropriate furniture, providing easier use by researchers, and enabling groups of up to 25 to hold seminars – witness the success of the recent lectures in the library. He has also undertaken reorganization of books on shelves, protected the more valuable and rare books within locked cabinets; provided a health and safety guide book concerning use of the Library and provided a guide book to assist in locating books within the Library, Marsham Street and Bradbourne House. A sub committee of the KAS Publications Committee has been formed, chaired by Frank Panton, to advise on the possibilities for electronic publication of future KAS publications.
Finally, you are all very welcome to the Library, and if any of you would like to take part in these activities, Frank would be very pleased to hear from you.