News

The end of my placement at the library

Our current placement student, Ally Hussain, writes about their work at the library as their placement comes to an end.

As I reach the final few weeks of my placement, I want to summarise what I have done this past year. In particular, I want to reflect on my thoughts and feelings, and how this time will change how I approach life. 

One of my highlights was the Big Flame zine workshop and unofficial closing party (very catchy). It was an amazing event that I got to help Amie, the Big Flame project coordinator, make decisions for and plan. It ended the project on a very positive note. Seeing the event happen after all the Little Flames’ hard work, and seeing all these people come together, was brilliant, despite the fact that Amie and I “couldn’t believe it was over” and that we were sad it was coming to an end. The true definition of bittersweet! Being involved in the Big Flame project from the start, when we were decorating our project journals and looking through the Big Flame material, to seeing it being taken down at the end, has been so special to me.

One thing I will take with me, other than the friends I’ve made, are the skills and process it takes to curate an exhibition and event series. Without the project, I would never have had the chance to be exposed to the ins and outs of what goes into creating an exhibition, and develop skills such as events planning. Throughout both the Big Flame project and my placement I have particularly enjoyed seeing how events that we have planned, organised and scheduled have come to life. This process was incredibly rewarding and will be something I hope to revisit in the future.   

As I said in my previous placement blog post, I had lost my passion for history due to my experiences in education. However, being surrounded by archival material at the library has really brought my interest back. Another highlight of my time here has been looking through the massive collections of photographs, immersing myself in visual history and not just the words that have been written down (although this is really interesting too). Having access to history in different forms makes it accessible for all, including people like me who tend to struggle with long bodies of text.

For almost the entire duration of my placement I have been writing the monthly WCML newsletter. Although there are times when it gets to the end of the month and I forget about it, it genuinely has been something I have really enjoyed doing. It gives me a way to track my time here and creates more communication between myself and all the people who read it. I will miss writing them and putting my own little touch onto them every month.

One of the most important things that I’ve done while on placement has been the South Asian Material Project. As a South Asian in a very white dominated field, it’s been difficult to see myself within the heritage sector, including through the material in the library’s collections. Creating this database, or catalogue, of some of the South Asian material I have found has been a long but rewarding process. Throughout, I have thought about the history I have had the chance to look at and read about, and the people I have met through this process, and how much easier it may make the process of finding material related to the South Asian community. Although it will not be complete by the time I leave, I hope it continues to grow and is utilised in a way that benefits the wider community.

To bring this project, and my placement, to an end, I’m organising one last event, an open archive showcasing some of the South Asian material I have found in the library, including Race Today periodicals, photographs, and magazines from different organisations.

Finally, I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone I’ve interacted with during my time here, from staff and volunteers to people who have accessed material or read the newsletters. I have learnt so much from being at the library, and I am so glad I got the chance to spend my year in such an amazing place.