The North Devon Record Office operates alongside Barnstaple Local Studies Library, the North Devon Athenaeum and Beaford Photographic Archive as part of an integrated Local Studies Centre. We therefore have access to the best and most extensive collection of local material for North Devon.
From National Curriculum, through further education to the entire sphere of lifelong learning, students in many subjects are required to use and interpret different sources. Our staff are qualified to help you or your class choose the best local material to suit your particular needs. We can also help you make the best use of that material.
Our archives include farm inventories, estate maps, school and log books, personal papers and photographs. These, along with the census records held by the Athenaeum and Local Studies Library, are all original sources. They are unique, one-off documents.
So why use them? One answer is that the National Curriculum's attainment targets in history and many other subjects require that students are able to use and interpret a variety of different sources. Another is that original sources can bring students face to face with their own history - with real people living real lives.
Original sources can also be used with secondary sources such as books, newspapers and maps to create a wealth of local background and colour on any given topic.
For instance, we can provide students of the Tudors with witness statements concerning pirates, a local man’s diary, household inventories, and muster rolls.
For the Victorian period, we can provide school log books, photographs, newspaper articles, theatre playbills, even a gaol register.
For the First World War, we hold letters from soldiers, photographs, magazines, and examples of wartime propaganda.
All these are just a small selection of what we can offer.
Original sources can be used quite inventively, to help create a Victorian classroom perhaps, or to reconstruct the neighbourhood around the scene of a crime.
We can also tell you why records were kept and the reasons for any gaps or omissions in the material. For younger students, we can suggest games and activities that will get them thinking about why people kept records and the kinds of records they kept.
We can provide advice and resources for students’ individual studies.
We can provide resources for class visits.
We can provide materials for class use.
Students intending to use Local Studies Centre material for an individual project may find it helpful to fill in a Student Enquiry Form, available from the Local Studies Centre main desk. We will then use the form to suggest any relevant sources. The form will be completed by us within 10 working days.
It is advisable to discuss the nature of any project with us first, to avoid problems arising later through lack of available material, etc..
A class visit to the Local Studies Centre can be a valuable learning experience. Visits can be arranged to suit National Curriculum topics. We offer four options:
Providing material for a teacher-led session.
Providing material and staff for a jointly-led session.
Conducting a staff-led session, including materials, activities, etc.
Giving a lecture on a particular topic.
A successful class visit requires a considerable amount of preparation. At least one month’s notice is required, and the class tutor may find it useful to pay a preparatory visit to the Centre to discuss their visit with us.
We recommend that groups should be no larger than 15 in number, and that a teacher is present throughout the session, which is likely to last between 30 minutes and 1 hour.
Staff will advise on any restrictions which may affect the class or students.
If a visit to the Local Studies Centre is not possible or appropriate, we can supply copies of certain sources for classroom use, together with advice on their use and interpretation. However, copyright laws mean that the range of material which can be copied for use in schools may be limited; for the same reason, we are only able to provide one copy of each original document. For all copies, a copyright declaration, available from the main desk, must be signed.
Again, a preliminary visit by any teacher requiring copies of documents for class use is advisable to discuss the avilability and use of material.
Facilities
The Local Studies Centre has seating for around 22 people in the main reading area, with a further 10 seats in the Record Office searchroom. However, as these are basically public areas, large school groups are often taken in the adjoining Henry Williamson Room, which can accommodate up to 60 people. The Centre has 4 microfilm and 9 microfiche readers, as well as a photocopier, microform reader printer and public access computers.
This service, also based in Barnstaple Library, can provide material to support most aspects of the National Curriculum, including some local studies material. These can be loaned to schools on a termly basis. For further details telephone (01271) 388623.
Publications and leaflets
A full list of publications and leaflets for sale at the North Devon Record Office.
Local Studies courses
We are putting together a programme of courses on various archive-related subjects through our leaflets and on our webpages.
Charges
Printouts from microform/A4 photocopies 30p per sheet, A3 photocopies 40p per sheet
Staff-led session £10.00
Lecture on a particular Local Studies topic £10.00
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