From the five treasures chosen relating to your district, we now need to find the biggest treasure of all!

We are holding a voting day in each of the five districts.  Staff will be on hand to show surrogate examples of items from the nominated collections and tell you a little bit more about why these incredible collections are indeed our treasures.

Monday 23rd January  ground floor of Halifax Central Library, 9.30 – 3.00pm

Tuesday 24th January ground floor Bradford Central Library, 9.30 – 3.00pm

Wednesday 25th Janury Lending Library Huddersfield Central Library, 9.30 – 3.00pm

Thursday 26th January ground floor Leeds Central Library, 9.00 – 3.00pm

Friday 27th Janury Upper Mall, the Riding Shopping Centre, Wakefield 8.30 – 5.30pm

Come along and vote for your favourite and discover some of the treasures of the Archives!

‘The ‘Treasures of the Archives’ campaign is an exciting new way of highlighting some of the diverse and rich collections held by West Yorkshire Archive Service.’

Alternatively you can vote online as many times as you like at       http://wyorksarchivestreasures.weebly.com/

 Voting for phase 1 of Treasures of the Archives will close at 5pm on Friday 17^th February 2012. Winners will be announced on Monday 20^th February.

The collection voted as the ‘Treasure’ of each district will be showcased in your district office. For further details please contact the Collections Team on 0113 3939767or email archives@wyjs.org.uk

Don’t forget that as part of West Yorkshire Archive Service’s Treasures Campaign, we have created a blog on our Treasures website which is highlighting a collection a day until 16th December.

Why not visit the blog and leave us your thoughts. Highlighted treasures nominations this week  include Brown Muff & Co, Waterhouse Charities, George Cowley’s papers on his experience as a PoW, Hainsworths and the terrier and diary from Brotherton parish collection.

 So why not visit the website today to find out more about the incredible collections nominated! Treasures of the West Yorkshire Archives Service

As part of West Yorkshire Archive Service’s Treasures Campaign, we have created a blog on our Treasures website which is highlighting a collection a day until 16th December.

Why not visit the blog and leave us your thoughts. Highlighted treasures nominations include Brown Muff & Co, the Anne Lister Dairies, Nostell priory and Yorkshire County Cricket Club So why not visit the website today to find out more about the incredible collections nominated! Treasures of the West Yorkshire Archives Service

To vote for The Alhambra as your archive treasure and to find out more about this bright collection, go to  http://wyorksarchivestreasures.weebly.com/ where you will find a page for each office along with their 5 nominations. Simply click on the nomination to find out more about the exciting treasure and follow the instructions to vote as many times as you like!                         

Have you had the Alhambra Pantomime experience? What was your favourite show –click on the link above and leave your memories of one of the countries leading theatres on our treasures blog.

For five weeks starting from Monday 14^th November we are highlighting one of five treasures from each of our district offices [Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds & Wakefield] as voted for by staff there.

These often little known gems are some of the most fascinating records and collections that we hold, for example, in Leeds we hold the A.W Hainsworth Collection, a superb example of a local company’s products coming to the attention of stars like Robbie Williams and Rod Stewart!

In Wakefield we have a 19^th Century convicts register which reveals the crimes and punishments of the ordinary and the not so ordinary person!

From crime and punishment to travellers notebooks, remarkable prisoner of war correspondence, inspirational architect’s plans, Oriental Arts and everyday diarists, our treasures are your treasures and we invite you to vote for your favourite from each district!

 You can vote online at http://wyorksarchivestreasures.weebly.com/ where you will find a page for each office along with their 5 nominations. Simply click on the nomination to find out more about the exciting treasure and follow the instructions to vote as many times as you like!

 Voting forms can also be found in each of our district offices, simply ask staff for a pen and get voting!

After a successful month of recipe related events, WYAS is pleased to announce its TOP TEN recipes received from September’s Recipes Across the Years events.

Damson Jam – Lorna Brooks

Auntie Nellie’s Rissoles – June M Jamieson

Cheese Scones – Mrs G Fielding

Doris’s Christmas Pudding -

3 Ingredients Fruit Cake -  Mr KR Frost

Auntie Miriam’s Stew – Mrs E Houldin

Rhubarb Mess -  Miss C Rawnsley. Pemberton

Wholegrain Goody – Mrs Shelley Morris

Callum’s Cake – Callum Hutton

Chocolate Fudge Cake – Lewis Candlin

And the overall winner is . . . . .

June M Jamieson for Auntie Nellie’s Rissoles

A huge thank you to everyone who took part! We had many entries, all of which were fantastic and will be bound by our conservation department into a recipe book.  This will be accessioned at our Wakefield office for future generations to enjoy.

 Many people think of archives as dusty old manuscripts, parchment deeds and sepia photographs. It’s certainly true that an awful lot of the records we hold at the West Yorkshire Archive Service fit that description (apart from the “dusty”- our Conservation team work very hard to ensure that doesn’t happen!).  The truth is, though, that history doesn’t ever stop.

One of the oldest documents we hold – a notification of a grant of land at Ripley from before 1157 (Ref: WYL230/165, WYAS Leeds)

As new technologies emerge the format in which records are created has always changed.  The glass plate negative gave way to 35mm film; the quill pen gave way to the fountain pen, then the biro and the typewriter; parchment gave way to paper and wet letter books disappeared with the rise of carbon copies. 

The mission of the West Yorkshire Archive Service has always been to collect, preserve and make available the county’s documentary heritage, for legal purposes and historical research.  The documents and records which were once produced on paper are now being created on computer and even though the email has replaced the letter and financial ledgers have been replaced by spreadsheets we still have a responsibility to ensure the records being created today are preserved for future generations to access.

Some of the computer records we hold in the archives already

So what are we doing about it?

Well today is a Day of Digital Archives as archivists across the world tell people about the work they are doing to help preserve the digital age,  so it seemed like the ideal opportunity to tell you all.

Our Digital Archives Policy is available on our website and sets out our commitment to exploring the ways in which we can best meet the challenges of preserving digital materials.  These challenges include the physical deterioration of digital storage media, rapid changes in hardware and software which mean we may lose the ability to access older records (remember 3 ½ inch floppy discs, anyone?) and developing the resources we need to collect, process, preserve and make available digital records.

We’ve got a special computer, which is isolated from our main network, where we can check digital records deposited with us for viruses and use tools to gather the technical information we need to preserve alongside the digital records themselves so they can be accessed in the future. We have dedicated server space to store the digital records once they have been processed.  We’re talking to our colleagues in the IT department about how we can make these digital records available to our researchers.

We’re developing training materials and advice for all our staff to help them deal with digital records and we’re taking part in wider training opportunities like this National Archives web-archiving pilot study .

If you want to know more about what we’re doing, think you might have some digital records you’d like to deposit with us for future generations, or maybe just want some advice on where to look for help in caring for your own digital “stuff” so your children and grandchildren can enjoy all those digital photos you’re taking, feel free to contact us for help, information and advice.

Follow us at @wyorksarchives or follow #digitalArchivesDay for more information about the Day of Digital Archives.

This sees the final stage in a process which began with a survey of the records in the owner’s house, followed by conservation work which primarily took the form of freeze drying of the records at risk. 

The 113 boxes of records cover the years 1216-2005 and include a wide variety of records relating to the Rawson family and to many other distinguished local families with whom the Rawson family intermarried, such as the Saltmarshes of Saltmarshe, the Stansfelds of Field House, the Waterhouses of Well Head, the Empsons of Knaresborough, and the Prestons of Green Royd, Skircoat. A particularly large number of documents covering the years 1734-1894 originate with the Priestleys of White Windows with whom the Rawsons of Sowerby married three times, in two consecutive generations and the Walker family.

The following selected items in the collection will hopefully show the range of records now available!

Deeds 1407-1952; wills, testamentary papers and marriage settlements 1614-1949; business records 1758-1951; list of subscriptions offered to enable raising of men to assist ‘His Majesty’s endeavours to put a stop to the unnatural rebellion in America’ c1777; genealogical notes 1777-1998; plans c1790-1951; roll of signatures of recruits for a Volunteer Corps for the security and protection of the neighbourhood of Halifax 1794; household notes and recipes c1800-1900; travel journals 1817-1890s, including visits to India, China, South America, etc; note book on musical matters 1823-1836 compiled by William Priestley (1779-1860), founder of the Halifax Choral Society; Sowerby Almshouses records 1854-1930 including register of inmates 1854-1930 and minutes 190-1912; photographs 1856-1936; goat registration cards 1890; records c1900-1938 relating to the distinguished career of  Admiral Sir Harry Holdsworth Rawson (1843-1910), Governor of New South Wales 1902-1909; letter of condolence from Princess Marie-Louise of Schleswig-Holstein to Alice Rawson on the death of her mother in the Suez Canal 1905; press cutting of the Local News Section of the Halifax Courier including article relating to the awards for F P S Rawson after his attempt to save two lives at Zennor, Cornwall; records relating to St John’s Thorpe, Triangle 1856-1930; Sowerby Division Conservative Association minutes 1885-1953.

To view this collection please contact WYAS Calderdale

If you are intrigued and would like to buy a copy of the book which features over 30 recipes taken from the collections held across the West Yorkshire Archive Service then you can either visit one of our offices or buy one online from our eshop.

The week beginning Monday 12th September sees each of our district offices offering free cake and biscuit samples to our readers made from recipes of the 1940s era.

On Friday 16th September we will be holding our Recipes Across the Years  event at Wakefield Market’s Demonstration Station in the food hall.

This free event will run from 8.30am – 4.30pm and will include:

•  A talk from WYAS staff at 12.30 and 3.30 on the workhouse and prison diets 
• A talk from WYAS Conservation Team at 10.30 and 2.00 on how they made iron gall ink from an old recipe, and how they have conserved an 18th century recipe book.
• The baking and sampling of biscuits and cakes on site taken from early – mid 20th century  recipes.
•  A kids corner where children can ice buns made from the recipes, and draw a picture of their favourite food
•   The opportunity to enter a recipe into our competition which will lead to each entry being bound by our conservation team and turned into an archive in October. Every family has a [not-so] secret recipe handed down through the generations and this is a fantastic opportunity to capture these recipes for future generations to treasure!

If you would like to help make history and have the chance to get your heirloom recipe into the archive, join in and send us your recipe.

So come along and listen to staff talk about the workhouse and prison diets, how to make iron gall ink from an old recipe and how our Conservation Team actually work to preserve our unique historical records -  all this while you enjoy some free samples of the buns, biscuits and cakes made from the recipes taken from our archives!