Fruits of our Labour

Hello!

It is our second to last week here as interns working in the Special Collections and Archives. It’s been a busy week but we are finally beginning to see the fruits of our labour! On Monday, we spent the whole day writing and editing the script for the audio-tape that will accompany the exhibition. We also edited the booklet that we have written which comprises of a more in-depth chronological account of the research we have conducted on Victorian animal culture.

We were given permission to work from home on Tuesday so that we could spend the day at Jade’s flat using her boyfriend’s audio equipment to record our reading voices. This proved a little more difficult than expected with bloopers interrupting the flow. However, we persevered and left it in the hands of Jade’s boyfriend who kindly agreed to master and edit the tape (Thank you Tiff!).

Wednesday was spent creating the exhibition labels with references to all the images and periodicals that will be displayed. During our lunch break, we took a walk down Bold Street to an arts and crafts shop to buy some coloured card for which the labels will be presented on. After much browsing and fawning over the pearl textured card, we decided on a strong navy, representative of LJMU.

Thursday, we set to work creating the six posters that are part of the exhibition and contain selected digitised images from the periodicals. They look very impressive with our exhibition title of “Walking Through Time with Victoria’s Animals”. Having completed the posters sooner than expected, we could move away from computer-based work and start printing, cutting and sticking our exhibition labels. This activity involved a guillotine and spray-glue – dangerous!

Jade and I have uploaded all of our completed work files onto OneDrive so that it is easily shareable between us and the project managers. Our completed files now consist of the exhibition flyers, catalogue, posters, and booklet: all ready to be printed! It is so satisfying to see all of our hard work coming together. The flyers contain two sides with our exhibition title and periodical imagery along with information such as the exhibition running time, location, logos, and library opening times. The catalogue consists of additional periodical imagery which will not be featured in the physical exhibition, and a brief description of the events of each decade featured along our exhibition time-line.

Throughout the process of referencing, we have noticed the huge advantage of completing the metadata spreadsheet in the early weeks. It has proved invaluable to us as we constantly consult it for image information. However, we are also so well familiarised with and knowledgeable of our material now. We recognise which images come from which periodicals, remember dates and artists, and overall feel confident in our newly developed area of animal culture in the Victorian era as represented through Victorian periodicals. I am very excited for the final step of displaying our chosen images, periodicals and labels in the exhibition glass cases, ready to share with LJMU students and public visitors.

Roisin

x

P.S. I forgot to mention we also started to make some badges with our favourite digitised images. I chose two Landseer paintings; “The Pet Fawn” and “Dignity and Impudence”.