Learning Archives are the perfect environment for hands-on learning experiences, be it in a professional or a personal context.
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he Royal Albert Hall is the ‘world’s most famous stage’ and its archive collections are a unique culture, arts and science heritage resource. 2015 saw the Archive Team provide greater access than ever before to the Hall’s incredible heritage; with the biggest achievements being the launch of the world’s most extensive venue performance database and the Hall’s first ever online archive catalogue. For the first time, researchers can search 30,000+ performances by date, performers, title or keyword, from the opening concert in 1871 right up until the latest performance!
of children on topics such as Shakespeare, circus and sport. The team has also assisted the Hall’s in-house musicians, ‘Albert’s Band’, to create ‘The Royal Albert Hall Songbook’. This is used with great success working with elderly and vulnerable groups in the community.
The Archive Team answered a record number of enquiries, gave public talks and displays, engaged with the media, created record amounts of digital content, as well as working with the Hall’s Education & Outreach Team, using archive material to inspire their projects. For example, archive images and content have been used in ‘Discovery Workshops’ for groups
The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) is engaging Year 4 and 5 students in a hands-on discovery of astronomy.
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primary school visit with a twist, the experience explores German astronomer Caroline Herschel, who discovered eight comets whilst assisting her brother William in his observations. Created out of Herschel’s observation notebooks held in the RAS archive, the astronomer is brought to life by actors narrating her journey from domestic servant to the first woman to receive a salary for scientific work. The students get a taste for palaeography as they decipher Herschel’s accounts of her discoveries and have
the chance to draw their own comets, inspired by photographs of Halley’s Comet. The visit exposes students to the diverse tools of discovery available to them beyond the classroom. The RAS has collected books and manuscripts written by its members since 1820, building a rich bank of resources. Through this, the archive supports the Society’s role in promoting the study of astronomy and geophysics. This is reflected by the incredibly positive response to the school visit. “The activities were hands-on and educational, varied in objective, so the children were engaged and learning all the time”, remarked one teacher.