RLUK and The National Archives (TNA) are pleased to announce the Fellows for the Professional Fellowship Scheme 2023-24. After a very competitive application round, the successful candidates will commence the work on their proposed projects in February 2023.
Professional Fellowships last for a year and are structured around short-term visits to TNA, for RLUK Fellows, and RLUK member institutions, for TNA Fellows, underpinned by a longer period of peer-to-peer mentoring and knowledge sharing. Professional Fellowships focus on a professional-practice question, contribute to a wider piece of work, and facilitate shared learning between TNA and individual RLUK members with the purpose of overcoming some of the collective challenges facing research and cultural organisations.
Below are the Fellows for 2023-24 and details on their projects, which investigate pressing issues around accessibility of and engagement with special collection and archive material as well as the role of libraries in digital scholarship and the needs that library and archive professionals have when supporting or collaborating in relevant projects.
2023-24 Fellows
Karen Sayers, Archivist, Special Collections Leeds University
Project: Visualising the Medieval Manor: creating an archivists’ toolkit to support research and teaching in digital humanities
Host Institution: The National Archives
Karen’s Professional Fellowship will aim to create a toolkit to help archivists support research and teaching in digital humanities using data from historical record series. Outputs will include a toolkit with a model for producing visualisations from historical data as well as a report on how archivists can expand their current metadata and digital skills to support researchers and teachers.
Ellen Oredsson, Digital Projects Officer, Education & Outreach, The National Archives
Project: Accessible vs. engaging: An exploration of best practice in digital educational content about archives for visually impaired audiences
Host Institution: University of Southampton
Ellen’s Professional Fellowship will explore how we best create online and digital educational content about archival material that is not just accessible but engaging for visually impaired audiences. Outputs will include a best practice guideline document and the development of an educational resource.
