William Salt Library Stafford . TrrtArnC e hiAor:- ," AfditftT of tbe f I'utbu IVJE "4eraF'_ Annual Report Agenda Item No ## **WILLIAM SALT LIBRARY** ## **ANNUAL REPORT APRIL 2023- MARCH 2024** ## **AN OVERVIEW** This year the Library building remained closed with access to its collection delivered through the Archive and Heritage Service in the temporary base at Eastgate House. Construction work has continued on the Staffordshire History Centre and William Salt Library building. In addition the activity programme has continued to engage people with the project and The Trust continues to play a very active role on the Project Team and Project Board represented by the Chair, Mithra Tonking, and Vice Chair, David Marriott. Access to the Library collection is restricted but there continues to be an enquiry service, copying and in some circumstances onsite access. Cataloguing of the collection is ongoing and has been supported by a Project Cataloguer. I would like to record my thanks to all of the Archive and Heritage staff, volunteers, and trustees. ## **THE TRUST** Trustee meetings were held in person at Eastgate House. At the Trust’s Annual General Meeting on 5[th] June 2023 the following people were re-elected as trustees: Dave Marriott, John Giffard, Val Gannon, and Nigel Tringham. Mithra Tonking was re-elected as Chair and David Marriott re-elected as Vice Chair. Charles Hawley was appointed Honorary Treasurer and John Thorneycroft was re- appointed Honorary Advisor. Trustees elected Mithra Tonking, David Marriott and Charles Hawley to the Management Committee. Staffordshire County Council appointed Carolyn Trowbridge as its representative on the Trust. Dean’s Accountants were appointed as Honorary Auditors of the Trust. Two further meeting took place during the year for the Trust on 2 October 2023 and 15 January 2024. ## **STAFFING AND VOLUNTEERS** ## **Establishment** The key staff working with the Library collections were Chris Copp (Collections Manager), Dominic Farr (Collection Officer) and Lisa Williams (Conservator) who have worked on planning the display, interpretation, shelving and conservation of the collections. Louise Crompton started her post as Project Cataloguer in October 2022 and resigned in April 2024. Recruitment is in progress to re-fill this post increasing the hours from 18.5 to 22.2 and which is still within the budget. Access to the collection was delivered by the History Centre Assistants (Claire Jackson, Henrietta Martinez, Amanda Spearman, Joanne Peck and Bev Sutherland) led by Julie O’Neill (History Centre Manager) and supported by Collection Officers (Liz Street, Dominic Farr and Rebecca Jackson). 2 Copying, photography, scanning, social media, website amendments and coordination of volunteers were delivered by the Engagement and Access team led by Sarah English (Engagement and Access Manager) and Helen Johnson (Community Engagement and Partnership Officer), Ben Cunliffe (Digital Officer), and Melanie Williamson (Volunteer Coordinator). Cataloguing of the Library’s collection is led by Dominic Farr (Collection Officer) and supported by the Louise Crompton (Project Cataloguer) and our volunteers. ## **Volunteers** Catherine Nichols has been working on WSL accession material that was not used during the Access to Archives (A2A) project. She has been adding them from the typed lists onto CALM and editing them. Currently she is up to the accession collections received in 1944. During the year Randle Knight finished the Library’s ‘Miscellaneous’ collection that contains for the most part unpublished research material. During the year he completed 368 items from this collection. As part of the NLHF funded project, Louise Crompton was working on the uncatalogued volumes from both the old Reading Room and the Horne Room. She added 1503 volumes to the online catalogue during the year. ## **THE LIBRARY BUILDING** Since the 1 February 2023 the site has been handed over to the construction company Pave Aways Limited. Julie O’Neill is the key contact between the service and Pave Aways liaising with the site manager and ensuring the site is secured. Fire and intruder alarm maintenance is continuing for both sites. A number of structural issues have been identified within building and items have been repaired and restored. These include: - Replacing the floor and staircase of the cottage. - The Townhouse and Cottage have been separated into two buildings. - Windows in the building have been restored and repainted. - Structural timbers in the basement replaced. - Roof repairs are in progress. - Floorboards repaired to trustees’ room. - Panes of broken glass replaced - Redundant pipework removed. - Dado and picture rails restored. - Period fireplace purchased for trustees’ room. - Redecoration of the building. - Ceiling and wall cracks and issues repaired. - New gas supply installed. The first rent payment is due after practical completion of the construction work in Summer 2024. ## **STAFFORDSHIRE HISTORY CENTRE PROJECT** Imagemakers have worked with the Archive and Heritage team and the Chair of the Trust to develop the plans for the exhibition space and the William Salt Library. The collections team have produced a long list of items for display in the new exhibition 3 space selecting from the archive, museum and library collections. These are on the themes of costume and textiles, people, star objects, art works, home life, working life, and childhood. These include items from the Library’s collection such as items relating to William Palmer and the window glass from Hall Hill with Mary Queen of Scot’s signature and illustration of Wulfric Spot and others. Work has also progressed on the digital welcome screen, digital labels for the exhibitions and interactives. One on the digital interactives features the William Salt Library building placing objects in the correct rooms. There will be audio tours of the History Centre, William Salt Library and a children’s tour. The historic library shelving has been restored and is waiting to be installed in the Trustees’ Room. The sections of the historic wallpaper will be cleaned and displayed in the town house. Some of the furniture will be returned to the Library with additional period items to supplement them. The Audience Agency have produced the first evaluation report focusing on the construction of the new centre and restoration of the Library. The next report will focus on the activity programme. Procurement of the new website continued to be complex requiring bespoke terms and conditions and a detailed tender specification. The tender process was completed at the end of April and the contract award is being progressed. The microsite for the project continues to attract healthy visitor numbers: https://staffordshirehistorycentre.blog/ Over the summer of 2023 the Engagement and Access team delivered Archive Animals activities at libraries using this to gather feedback on favourite collection items and what families would like to see at the History Centre. The virtual access forum and critical friends have fed back on the interpretation designs and accessibility of the site. During spring half term and Easter holidays a new puppet craft activity has been delivered in libraries. The school sessions continue to be tested through school assemblies. The two-term adult learning course was delivered from October 2023-March 2024 led by Dr Andrew Sargent from the University of Keele supported by Archive and Heritage staff. The course was taught at Stafford Rugby Club with documents from the collections used to ensure it was an interactive and informative course. A total of 14 learners attended 20 sessions across the two terms. The archaeology report has been completed by Pre Construction Archaeology and revealed some early Anglo-Saxon finds on the site. These are the earliest finds for this period in Stafford and were considered to be very significant. A future exhibition will feature the finds on the site in addition to those discovered during excavations for Staffordshire Place 1 and 2. The finds will be deposited with the Potteries Museum and Art Gallery. Construction in 2023/24 has been impacted by very wet weather in the autumn/winter and more significant repairs to the Library building. The exhibition space is now fully glazed and the link has been made between this space and the Library building. There is an estimated 10 week delay and to mitigate this the site will be handed over in portions. Handover is planned to start at the end of June with construction now due 4 to complete at the end of the summer. No opening date has been fixed but the new Centre will be open before the end of the calendar year. A total of seven progress reports and claims have been submitted to the NLHF and received favourably. Two site visits have been made in October 2023 and April 2024. The mentors for the project are extremely complimentary about the delivery of the project, the co-production to develop the schools and family activities, and the collaborative and strong partnership leading the project. ## **FINANCE** The Annual Accounts have been prepared by Mr Hawley and the Library Administrator in preparation for audit by Dean’s Accountants. The Library’s general expenditure was £10,853.19 which was £3,193 over the allocated budget. This was due to additional costs on the History Centre project. Income was £10,629.83 and exceeded the estimated targets mainly due to an increase in investment income. The Library received its annual grant of £3,000 from Staffordshire County Council. Key sources of income continued to be reproduction fees and digital images plus increasing royalties from Bridgeman Images. £480 was spent on conservation of printed books this year. ## **COLLECTIONS MANAGEMENT** ## **Conservation of Printed Book Collections** Work has commenced on the printed book programme and is being completed by Conservator Lisa Williams in a private capacity. The following books have been conserved: The Royal Charge: A Sermon Proving the Knowledge of God- A Guide to Princes and bs 7 other pamphlets The Public General Acts of the 1 Geo IV passed in 1820, 1 & 2 Geo IV passed in 1821 bs 8 and 3 Geo IV passed in 1822 bs 10/8 Lectures on the Work of Creation and the Doctrines of Revelation England Delineated; or a Geographical Description of Every County in England and bs 15/1 Wales ## **COLLECTIONS DEVELOPMENT** ## **Accessions** A total of 176 accessions were received during the year. The range of subjects covered by the year’s accessions has been very wide and details have been reported to the Trust meetings in the regular lists of accessions. A total of 64 printed books were added to the library’s collections and 6 were donated. ## **Cataloguing** 5 Not all new accessions received during the year have been catalogued as the priority has been work relating to the Staffordshire History Centre project. The cataloguing backlog from has improved from 87.53 to 78.60 linear metres. A total of 3,951 (compared to 1,628 for 2022-23) individual catalogue descriptions for new items were added to the online catalogue during the course of the year. By the end of March 2024 through the History Centre project a total of 8,226 items has been catalogued out of target of 12,000 (68.55%) Progress was made on the expansion of the online catalogue by the addition of legacy data on our holdings. In total 2,027 (compared to 1,425 for 2022-23) retrospective catalogue descriptions were added to the online database during the year. A key component of online cataloguing for Library items is the preparation of biographical information about authors and personal subjects associated with a particular work. These are called name authority records and, during the year, an additional 997 (compared to 1,800 in 2022-23) of these have been created. ## **PUBLIC SERVICES** The Library collection is in storage with limited access and no items have been produced for in person visits. An in-person service is only being offered to readers whose request cannot be met through the copying/research service and meet the access criteria. The number of enquiries received has increased compared to the previous year. Photography and scanning orders were supplied through Staffordshire Record Office. Visitor sessions to the Staffordshire Views pages on the Past Track website have remained consistent. ## **Public Service Statistics** ||**2023/23**
**2022/23**| |---|---| |**Personal Use via Staffordshire Record Office**|| |Number of documents/restricted access items
produced|55
0| |Talks andvisits|22
156| ||| |**Reprographics Services**|| |Numberofphotocopy orders|27
Not recorded| |NumberofStaffordshireViews orders|4
Not recorded| |Numberotherorders|5
Not recorded| |Numberofphotography orders|2
Not recorded| |Total numberoforders|38
45| ||| |**Online Use**|| |Numberof visitorsessions onStaffsViewsweb site|2,143
1,633| 6 ## **Permissions to Publish** Nine permissions to publish or exhibit items from the Library’s collections were granted for: - Staffordshire View (SV.VII.101) Newcastle showing the Guildhall and market in High Street, for use by Newcastle Museum and Art Gallery in a book ‘Market Stories, Newcastle under Lyme’. - SV-IX.88c Castle Church - Stafford Castle: engraving 1830 ; SV-IX.28a Stafford - - Approach to Railway Station: sepia drawing 1841 Buckler; SV-III.26 Castle Church - Stafford Castle: sepia drawing c.1800 – 1899 E. Petit. For use by EDP for interpretation boards at a housing development near Stafford Castle. - Staffordshire Views (SV.II.133a, 135 & 137) of Brewood Grammar School for use in a publication ‘Brewood Grammar School: Headmasters making history, 15471875’. - Staffordshire View (SV.IV.351a) St Michael’s Church, Horton for parish open days. - Staffordshire View (SV.V.68) Kinver Edge in an essay ‘Rustic Dwellings in Rugged Protuberances: Two Case Studies in Using Buildings Archaeology to Understand Rock-Cut Buildings’, to be published in 'Antiquary of many parts. Essays in Architecture, Topography and Archaeological History'. - Norton Bridge sale catalogue from 1919 (SC/H/1/13) in ‘Places in Chebsey Parish’ by Chebsey Local History Society. - Staffordshire View (SV.IV195) Fisherwick Hall in an article in ‘Caughley Polychrome Patterns’ by the Caughley Society. - Bristol Views (BV.XXII.4&5) house and bath at Arnos Vale near Bristol on a noncommercial blog. - Staffordshire Views (SV.I.186b, 187b, 188a, 188b, 190b) of Biana Hall for use in ‘A History of Byanna Hall’ unpublished research. ## **Talks and Visits** The tour of the William Salt Library has now been converted into a talk. One talk was delivered to Sandon WI in 2023/2024. ## **Social Media** There are combined Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts for the Archive, Museum and William Salt Library from which a number of staff post items about the collections and work of all three services. Twitter: @ArchandHeritage Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/StaffordshireArchivesandHeritage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archandheritage/ ## **Friends of the William Salt Library** The Friends of the William Salt Library held their AGM in person on 14 June 2023 in Stafford Borough Council’s Civic Centre which was attended by the Librarian and Chair of Trustees. The Friends provided £15,764 plus VAT to cover the restoration of the historic library shelving. The shelving will be installed in the Trustees’ Room. An afternoon tea event was held at Bishton Hall on 16 September 2023. There was a 7 further informal meeting between the Friends and Chair of the Trust in November 2023. ___________________________________________________________________ Joanna Terry William Salt Librarian, May 2024 8 THE WILLIAM SALT LIBRARY TRUST ACCOUNTS for the year cndpd 31 March 2024 GLITioriil Purpu%o. Accolinr YeLlt elided 3 1 Mrircli 2U24 ConientS Incoiiio lind exi)ertditiire account - Conscrvilllon £iccoiJni BLiliince slieet- Con5erv47tion accouTII rhe Williain S￿111 Library Tfu51 Yeiir ciidtd 31 March 2024 AccountJnts's roporl lo tho ttus1e￿s of Tho Williiim Sii li iibrJry Trust Do.Ins CliilrtorL,d Accountaillq riibsJll House Page I Gerieri71 Purpose Accou1)¢ Yeiir ended 31 Miirch 2024 2024 Inconie 2023 3.000 8,709 1.387 904 L,167 1.851 16? M & G I-IKod intljrest Bonk and Biiildiiip, Socioly Rrprodijclioii lecs BridllLn)aii roy3liie5 Plioto£itipliic pL'rfflits Staf'iordshire Vieivs Geiii'r