It’s that time of year again! The academic year has been busier than ever, with more teaching sessions, volunteers, and visitors keeping us on our toes. And we've enjoyed every minute of it! But it does mean that often the big jobs, like moving artefacts to new storage, and the little ones, like updating labels and having a thorough tidy have to wait.
Our annual stocktake is our chance to catch up. It’s how we make sure our collections stay well cared for, easy to find, and ready to share with everyone for years to come.
Read on to see behind-the-scenes during Stocktake 2025!
Garment Care
As a mixed repository, we care for diverse collections, with a particular strength in fashion and sports history: two fields renowned for their distinctive sartorial style. Until recently, many of our textiles and garments had to be carefully folded in tissue and placed in boxes. But thanks to our expanded storage with hanging rails, we can now hang them properly! This is preservation at its best: hanging garments prevents creases, reduces stress on the fabric, and makes them much easier to access.
Before: Some of our collections, like these rugby shirts from the Leicester Tigers collection, had already been placed on the rails. But, as you can see, we still had room for more. Frontrunner Lovleen got to work unpacking the garments and making new labels for the hangers.
After: here you can see that items from the Ski Club of Great Britain and DMU student designs collections have now joined the rails. And a happy side effect of this process is that we've reclaimed loads of packaging, acid-free boxes, tissue paper, ribbon, all ready to be reused for future treasures. A win-win all round!
Artefact Storage
One of the tasks we were especially excited about during this stocktake was moving a wide variety of artefact items into our newly claimed storage area. These included trophies, skis, boxing gloves, large plans, maps, and prints, each with its own story and significance. Having a dedicated, spacious area means these treasured objects can now be stored safely and accessed more easily.
Above: Archivist David got straight to work (despite the sweltering 30-degree heat) cleaning the room, assembling the new shelving units, and moving items.
He transferred as many artefact items as the space would allow, bringing together pieces that had been stored in various locations into this new, dedicated area. This set-up not only enhances preservation by giving the items ample room to be carefully packaged and stored but also improves accessibility. Additionally, it significantly increases our overall storage capacity, potentially gaining space for exciting new collections to join us.
Locations & Labelling
With all this moving around, our location data was in serious need of an update. Knowing that garments are on rails, artefacts in the new storage room, and large archive boxes moving into the spaces they left behind simply isn't enough. To ensure that staff can find items easily today and decades from now, we needed to label everything accurately and update all locations on our digital content management system.
Above: Work in progress as the smaller shelves that previously held our artefacts are cleared to make way for the new storage setup.
Above, you can see a before-and-after glimpse of our storage transformation. As our larger archival boxes are moved into their new home and stored together, each one is carefully and correctly labelled with its unique collection reference number. This meticulous labelling ensures that every box can be quickly identified and retrieved, helping us maintain an organised and accessible archive.
Each label is first logged manually to ensure accuracy before being updated on our content management system, keeping our records precise and up to date. While much of the reorganisation happens in our physical spaces, we also do a digital tidy-up alongside it, making sure folders and files are named correctly, obsolete files are deleted, and our digital structures stay clear and fit for purpose. It’s all part of keeping the collections accessible and future-proof, both on the shelves and digitally.
Fun Find
Each year, we always find something that makes us smile. Last year, it was cheeky student graffiti and a 1930s doppelgänger of Reece Shearsmith! This time, the surprise came from between the covers of The Sketch magazine, a British society publication that ran from 1893 to 1959.
The 1955 issue sports a beautifully illustrated cover, and inside is an article about Mademoiselle Myranda Mychel of Marseilles, crowned Miss Mimosa, 1955. We loved the fantastic name, but let’s be real: traditional beauty contests were less about celebrating women and more about policing women’s appearances through a patriarchal lens. Glamorous on the surface, but ultimately a tool for enforcing narrow, outdated standards of femininity.
There was also this rather "controversial" and prophetic article about the newspaper strike that left readers relying on TV and radio for their news update. The author of the piece relates how these mediums have their limitations in that 'you can't take them on the train!' Fast forward 70 years, and now of course, we can. His ‘most serious’ concern, however, was the lack of informed partisan commentary on these news outlets. Today, we certainly get plenty of the partisan but whether it's informed or not is certainly debatable!
Round-Up
Other tasks included repacking some of our bulky items. Things like DVDs or CD-ROMs might seem small, but they almost always come in oversized plastic cases. Not only are those cases not approved archival packaging, but they also take up far more space than necessary.
Above: Behold the space we saved by swapping those bulky cases for slimline envelopes. Shelf space reclaimed!
And we did it again by swapping these bulky presentation ring binders holding digital photo CD-ROMs for slim archival folders. More space saved = more organized = more accessible.
Deep Clean & Removing Unwanted Guests
And finally, to get ready for reopening, we gave the place a deep clean: clearing desks and trolleys, dusting, vacuuming all the nooks and crannies and...
...removing a few unwanted guests, like these dead woodlice! All in all, one of the less hazardous pests to find in the archives, thankfully.
And that's a wrap till next year.
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