Now seems like a very good time to give an update on the volunteer projects as two significant ones are pretty much completed. There are now six volunteers working on Crichton material, and interestingly half of them have actually worked at the Crichton Royal. Firstly the listing of the contents of Dr Easterbrook’s Scrapbook by Sue Greig, which began around the end of September 2012, was completed a couple of weeks ago after much hard work on Sue’s part, especially in the final stages when Dr Easterbrook’s handwriting became smaller and smaller and more indecipherable! The finding aid that Sue has created lists each item, giving a description, date, extent, format and any additional notes to assist with context and provenance. The Scrapbook contains 618 items along with Dr Easterbrook’s notes. To give you some idea of what these items are, there are 131 photographs and images of the hospital buildings and grounds, staff and people associated with it; 142 newspaper cuttings about the hospital staff, obituaries, marriages, retirements; theatre, entertainment and sports at CRI and local and national events; 136 programmes for entertainment at CRI including theatre, concerts, dances, balls, lectures, sports days, tableaux, horticultural shows and local events; 28 tickets for entertainments both at CRI and local events such as Burns Club dinners. Other items comprise lots of official forms and administrative material, items personal to Dr Easterbrook including his letter of resignation, a catalogue to the Crichton Library compiled c.1853, rules and regulations, legislation and material relating to the Boards of Trustees and Directors. This finding aid will form part of the catalogue entry for the Scrapbook so people can see exactly what is in there. Sue has already started work on another Crichton related project working with the photographic collection.
Sue Williams has very nearly completed the index of patient names from the case books. This project was started by Local Studies Officer, Alison Burgess back in 2010 when she started indexing the early CRI, SCA and female case books. Sue, who has been working her way through the male case books, has dedicated most of her Friday afternoons to the completion of this project which has so far proved to be an invaluable resource to me and the other Archive Centre staff in both understanding the records and assisting with answering many enquiries. Lynda Mackie has also assisted in this project with the chronic case books. As I have mentioned in earlier posts, there are 129 Case Books dating from 1839 to 1937 that record the case notes and clinical records of every patient admitted. A whopping total of 17482 names have been indexed, with some patients appearing in several volumes. It is hoped that we can add additional information to this index, for example to record if patients appears in registers, such as the registers of escape, restraint and seclusion and probation, so we can provide researchers with a broad range of material and maximise the use of the collection.
Other ongoing volunteer projects include an index of staff names from the quarterly wages lists in the early minute books that Alverie Weighill is working on. She is recording staff name, post and the pages in the volume they appear. This will hopefully be another important resource, as full lists of staff engaged at both CRI and SCA do not begin until 1879 in the staff pay books. This is proving an interesting exercise in tracing how the hospital staff grew, the new posts gradually being created, and also in seeing the difference in staffing levels and CRI and SCA.
There are three volunteers currently working on the loose enclosures from the case books. Margaret Smith and Lynda Mackie are working through the volumes ensuring all the loose material is removed and a note is made of which page they have been removed from. In the case books themselves a note is made on the page where the items have been removed. This is an important project to ensure no material goes astray and we know where every item originated. And finally, Betty Paisley has recently started listing these loose enclosures in a spreadsheet. She is recording what each item is, the date, which patient it relates to and the subject. This will allow us to get a more accurate picture of the number of loose material we have, which mostly includes correspondence and clinical charts, and a view of the subject matter covered.
I would like to say a massive THANK YOU to all the volunteers working on these projects. The work they are doing is a great help and very much appreciated.
Care Not Confinement 