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Collection Care

A taxing responsibility: Subsidies of the Clergy, 1543-1628

This blog was written by Dr Edward Taylor, Library Assistant at the House of Lords Library. I recently gained the opportunity to volunteer for the Collection Care team at the Parliamentary Archives. One of my tasks was to audit a …

Seeing through the years: The Conservation of Transparent Papers in the Parliamentary Archives Collection Part II

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This blog was written by Zoe Voice, Preventive Conservator. Introduction Welcome back for part two of our series on transparent papers. In the last post, we took a look at what transparent paper is, how it’s made, what examples we …

Seeing through the years: The Conservation of Transparent Papers in the Parliamentary Archives Collection Part I

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Photograph of brown tracing paper with a light background.

This blog article was written by Zoe Voice, Preventive Conservator. Introduction Transparent Papers, particularly those found in archives, are a material that can look quite intimidating to handle due to their often-poor condition and brittleness.[1] However, the plans drawn on …

Leek, Thistle, Shamrock and Rose: Symbols of the UK and the Elizabeth Tower

Colour photograph of decorative shield on the exterior of the Palace of Westminster.

The Elizabeth Tower and the Palace of Westminster are decorated with beautiful and symbolic imagery – representing the values, history, and identity of UK Parliament. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the national plant emblems on …

The New Year Chimes of Big Ben

photograph of the clock tower and the new year fireworks

As the New Year approaches, we will once again hear the bongs of Big Ben ring out across London as midnight strikes. While renovations are taking place, the Great Bell is currently only rung on special occasions such as Remembrance …

Data Collection and Research in Economic History in the age of the 'Digital Revolution': A Guest Blog by Kara Dimitruk, University of California, Irvine

There now hangs a print of the rolls of Acts of Parliament – inspired by the Act Room – above the large research table in the reading room of the Parliamentary Archives. This was a new addition on my most …

Negative and Positive – Digitising Glass Plate Negatives

The Parliamentary Archives holds a collection of glass plate negatives dating from c.1900 that were purchased from Edward Farmer, a commercial and technical photographer, in 1972. Our latest project has been to digitise this archive and make the images available …

Collection Care work on the Stone Photographs

The Collection Care team is involved in many of the digitisation projects at the Parliamentary Archives, particularly when the items to be digitised are fragile to handle or need long-term archival packaging or rehousing. In the case of the Stone …

Revealing Parchment’s Hidden Stories

Thomas Bower (Collection Care Assistant) writes about an on-going academic project we've been helping with. Over the summer, members of the Collection Care Team at the Parliamentary Archives have contributed to a nationwide research project to explore the DNA of …