We’ve had an interesting and hectic year, here is a round up of what we got up to in pictures.
January
We kicked off the year by creating a new website, giving the blog a new look and joining Instagram. The first image we posted showed the first books of the year to be accessioned into our collections.
February
We celebrated the 100th Anniverary of Women getting the vote by looking at the Devon Connection to the Suffrage movement
March
As part of our 130th Anniversary year we started publishing a series of post called 10 Facts. Each post contains 10 facts about the North Devon Athenaeum and our collections. In March wrote 10 facts about our founder, William Frederick Rock.
April
Saw us take part in #Archive30 on twitter completing 30 days of 30 tweets on different aspects of our archives.
May
After months of work and a lot of help from the Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon and the V&A we carefull packed up the Prior’s Ring for transport to Rouen, France where it spent the summer on loan for a major exhibition which was opened by the French Minister of Culture.
June
We attended the Museum’s annual Midsummer event which took place at Bridge Chambers this year. The Bridge Chambers is home to Barnstaple’s Bridge Trust and was used as a court at one time holding Quarter Session hearings.
July
The hot weather we had this year also brought with it a large collection of slides made by Bruce Oliver which had previously been part of our collections but not seen in over thirty years. They will now be re-accessioned, catalogued and placed with the rest of the Oliver Collection.
August
We not only celebrated our 130th Anniversary, but also 5 years of Tales From the Archives
September
Saw us prepare for our first joint event with the North Devon Record Office Local Studies Library, creating displays and selecting items from our collections for show.
October
We celebrated 30 years of Archives in North Devon with our first joint event. Over 100 people attended the event which showcased 30 items from the collections of the North Devon Record Office, Local Studies and North Devon Athenaeum along with displays and talks from each organisation.
November
It’s not every day you see a sheep in a hairdressers! Packie the lamb was visiting The Steps hairdressers in Bideford with his owner, May Davies in 1967. His best friends were Mrs Davies’s dogs – a Great Dane and a Doberman! #hairyarchives #explorearchives
We took part in the #ExploreArchives as part of Archives Awareness Week and a sheep in a hairdressers stole the show!
December
We officially celebrated our 130th Anniversary as part of our annual Founders Day Celebrations.
These are just some of the things we got up to in the last year, and we’re looking forward to seeing what will happen in 2019
…Barum Athena
Tales From the Archives 