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Interested in volunteering at Kendal? We'd welcome your help with Kendal Archives' new project to computerise marriage index. Find out more!

Volunteering with the Archive Service

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Your Archive Service needs you!

Volunteer making archive boxes at Barrow

Our 4 Archive Centres, as well as our Conservation Unit in Carlisle, all offer rewarding volunteer opportunities for all ages and interests, whether this be an occasional hour, regular visits or work-experience placements. Across the Archive Service volunteers play a crucial role helping with document repackaging and preservation, sorting and listing of archives, and creating valuable name indexes to make key sources more easily accessible.  These tasks vary according to location and the volunteer’s interest and time-availability. For volunteers keen to work with Conservation, activities can involve cleaning and preservation of books and manuscripts; cleaning, digitising and  packaging of photographic images; making customised boxes and preservation packaging; and cleaning and preservation of maps and plans.

Recent volunteer activity

Over recent years, volunteers have been helping us re-package the Furness parish registers cared for by Cumbria Archive and Local Studies Centre, Barrow. Thanks to their dedication, each register will have its own individual made-to-measure box – ensuring that it is kept in the best possible condition through future years.

Another long-term project is the re-packaging and listing of the fantastic collection of photographs in the Barrow Local Studies collection. There are around 5000 of these in total, and with the help of volunteers, we are removing them from their old mount boards and repackaging them in archival materials. We are also adding them to our catalogue database, so that they will be more accessible than ever before. 

Elsewhere across the Archive Service volunteers played a crucial role helping with document repackaging ahead of the move to the new Carlisle Archive Centre, regularly helping out in our Conservation Unit, and creating a valuable name index to the Cumberland Pacquet Victorian newspaper entries in Whitehaven. Need something to take your fancy?  new projects are frequently becoming available: marriage indexing at Kendal, shipping indexing at Whitehaven and soon indexing all World War I newspaper entries at Whitehaven and Workington Local Studies.

This work wouldn’t be possible without the assistance of volunteers, and we are always pleased to welcome new helpers. Give us a call if you would like to join us!