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Creation & Success of
Aberdeen City Centre’s
Women’s Heritage Trail
Presented by Claire Carolan
Written with help from
Morag Smith, Glasgow Women’s Library
&
The Aberdeen Women’s Heritage Trail
Group Members
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Content
• Aberdeen City Centre Women’s Heritage
Trail
• Mile Stones
• Reflecting on the walk and beyond
• Questions?
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
equality and diversity
information literacy
lifelong learning
local history
partnerships
community-lead
Librarians
empowering
People
Aberdeen City Centre Women’s
Heritage Trail
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
What is the Aberdeen City Centre Women’s
Heritage Trail?
• 90-minute walk around the City Centre
• Created and delivered by volunteer guides
and researchers
• Features pioneering women who have
made a contribution to the city, or have
played a big part in Aberdeen’s history
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Aberdeen City Centre Women’s
Heritage Trail
• Over 20 women
• From past to present
• Fields include : arts, medicine, philanthropy, politics, and more …
• Notorious deeds rather than achievements
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Aberdeen City Centre Women’s
Heritage Trail
• The walks ran from May to September
2014
• Free
• Open to both men and women.
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Map of the Walk
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mile Stones:
the extraordinary story
of how it was done
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mile stones• Different Reasons for joining the project
• Mapping Memorials to Women
• Walks and Talks
• Aberdeen Women’s Alliance AGM
• Illuminated Letters
• Glasgow Women’s Library Workshops
• Funding Applications
• Scripts written
• Glasgow Trip
• International Women’s Day Launch
• Brochures published
• May Publicity Launch
• May to September Walks
• Dundee Trip
• Plaques and outreach programmes
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Different catalysts and pathways
into joining the project
• All based on good communication and networking:
– “Phone call from someone who I knew from another group. I was a bit fed up and needing a challenge, having moved to sheltered housing –bored with lack of interesting topics”
– “Chance conversation at International Women’s Day. I remarked that I was looking for a new interest/project to get my teeth into.”
– “Invited by a family member who knew of my interest in history.”
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Different catalysts and pathways
into joining the project
• All based on good communication and networking:
– “An email came through to our community centre where I am the Chairperson. I attended Open Day for AWA at the Town House”
– “Saw the Mapping Memorials to Women website online and was interested in doing something for it with AWA”
– “Saw the newspaper then booked for Mapping Memorials – couldn’t go but was contacted later to say the group was going to meet more.”
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Different catalysts and pathways
into joining the project
• All based on good communication and networking:
– “Speaking to my Library Chartership Mentor about
gender issues in the workplace, she suggested I
attend the Mapping Memorials to Women Event at the
Public Library.”
– “Having been involved in two previous proposals for a
women’s trail, I was delighted to see a new item
online and emailed Lesley and Morag in October
2013-ish”
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Different catalysts and pathways
into joining the project
• All based on good communication and networking:
– “Saw the advert on TheZone, which is the Aberdeen City Council website for Employees. Thought it was a one-off only. The rest as we say is history! Pardon the pun!”
– “My Friend saw the event advertised in the Evening Express, and asked me to go along to the first meeting, which she missed. Meantime I went along to Town House on International Women’s Day and heard all about the project and went to the second meeting”
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Different catalysts and pathways
into joining the project
– “Got invited to AWA AGM 2014; Attended the
Wednesday evening walk; post came up for a
paid volunteer co-ordinator and got the post.”
– “In November 2012, a friend asked if I’d be
interested in a session by Glasgow Women’s
Library on Mapping Memorials to Women as I
had an interest in women’s history.”
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Different catalysts and pathways
into joining the project
• Conversation at events
• Phone calls
• Mentoring conversations
• Newspaper ads
• Word of mouth
• Emails to Community Centres
• Website
• Intranet
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
Event organised by Glasgow Women’s
Library, and intended as a one-off!
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
• Glasgow Women’s Library was promoting
the Mapping Memorials to Women project.
• This project was born from a reflection on
history.
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
What does history mean to you?
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
• Morag Smith likes to quote Jane Austen
here:
“… I am fond of history."
"I wish I were too. I read it a little as a duty,
but it tells me nothing that does not either
vex or weary me. The quarrels of popes and
kings, with wars or pestilences, in every
page; the men all so good for nothing, and
hardly any women at all -- it is very tiresome"
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
• http://www.womenofscotland.org.uk/
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Mapping Memorials to Women
• Aberdeen Group met up a few weeks later
to see who had added what.
• And nothing had happened.
• Upon reflection, we identified a gap in our
research skills, and decided to up-skill as
a group.
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Walks and Talks• Summer Programme included visits to
following libraries, to learn research and
library skills:
*Aberdeen City Libraries: Central
Library, Local Studies Services
* Special Collections at the University
of Aberdeen
*Aberdeen City Archives
* Tolbooth Museum…
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Walks and Talks
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Aberdeen Women’s Alliance AGM
• By the time we had all added one person
to the map or researched one woman, we
had collected quite a bit of information.
• The Aberdeen Women’s Alliance gave us
the opportunity to present our findings at
their AGM
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Presented by Claire Carolan
27/08/2013 Women's Alliance AGM
Illuminated Letters
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
:
Illuminated Letters
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
:
Illuminated Letters
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
:
Illuminated Letters
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
:
Illuminated Letters
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
:
Glasgow Women’s Library
Workshops
• Creating a women’s heritage walk in Aberdeen
• Introduction and icebreaker
• Talk about the development of women’s heritage walks with examples from Glasgow
• Women’s Library and other women’s walk projects.
• Creating a first map of women in Aberdeen –discussion and hands on activities
• Used discussion and group activities to start mapping ideas, themes and places – who and what could be included? where were the question marks?
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Glasgow Women’s Library
Workshops
• Feedback from first session
• Talk and discussion on research tools and resources
• Included online sources, bibliographical resources, local history sources and
• capturing voices that aren’t always heard – social history/oral history
• Using Dropbox for group research - demo and discussion
• Discussion and group activities focusing on individual and group research topics,tools and methods
• This session included handouts and examples on research sources and a visit from a GWL walk researcher / exploring the local studies section.
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Glasgow Women’s Library
Workshops
• Feedback from second session
• Developing a route, planning route stops
and using Google maps
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Glasgow Women’s Library
Workshops• Feedback from previous session
• Writing a walk script
• This session looked at the process of writing a walk script.
• Included sample final scripts, research to script process examples and the different equipment and
tools and techniques that can be used to enhance the script (including use of images).
• Had a go at writing a small sample section and developing some ideas for an Aberdeen walk script)
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Glasgow Women’s Library
Workshops
• Feedback from previous session
• Becoming a tour guide
• Showing of GWL DVD One Small Step and examples, images and film footage of tour guides on Necropolis walk and others. Sample of tour guide training options and contracts.
• Visit and question/answer session from experienced GWL tour guide(s)
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Glasgow Women’s Library
Workshops
• Practical matters - First Aid Training – risk assessments, insurance, tour guide
• Responsibilities, forms, accessibility and permissions
• Exercise – a vision of your walk in Aberdeen
• Planned a group visit to sample walk in Glasgow and Dundee
• Walk-round of sample route in Aberdeen
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Funding Applications
• Resilience
• Knowing what Funders are looking for
• 8 applications made, 3 were successful
• Equality and Diversity
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Scripts written
• Individual Research
• Collaborative editing
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Glasgow Trip
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
International Women’s Day Launch
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Brochures published
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
May Publicity Launch
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
May to September 2014 Walks
• Over 300 people attended in total
• Wide range of groups attended
• Visitor input valued as much as the
research we had done
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Dundee Trip
• Different approach
• Advice on plaques
• Booklets
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Plaques and
outreach programmes
• The heritage walks project plans to
expand into other areas of the city,
encouraging more women to get involved
in promoting their history, research and
sharing information.
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
A self-directed, community-lead project, achieved
with help from and sincere thanks to:• Glasgow Women’s Library
• Aberdeen Women’s Alliance
• Local partners:
Aberdeen City Libraries
Aberdeen City Council
Aberdeen inspired
Vibrant Aberdeen
All the librarians who kindly shared their knowledge and skills
on researching women who had a connection to Aberdeen,
including the Aberdeen City Archives, Aberdeen City’s Central
Library: Local Studies Service, University of Aberdeen Special
Collections, and Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum’s Historian
Chris Croly.
• Serendipity which brought us together and saw the project develop
as we went along!Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Reflecting on the walk
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Reflecting on the walk
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
• Lessons learnt and skills gained:
– Public speaking
– Presentation skills: .ppt, TV, radio
– Research skills
– Communications skills
– Listening skills
– Team working skills
– Sense of achievement
– New friendships
– Increased confidence
Plaques and
outreach programmes
• Depending on funding, the group
members hope that the women who
captured their interest will have the same
impact on other groups and women in
Aberdeen, inspiring them to find out who
the female historical superstars are in their
local areas.
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Looking ahead
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
• Outreach Projects in Torry and
Woodside
• £9,000 funding towards Historical
Plaques and outreach project
• Local History project with Aberdeen
City Libraries
So, as promised…
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality
equality and diversity
information literacy
lifelong learning
local history
partnerships
community-lead
Librarians
empowering
People
Thank you for coming along.
Any questions?
Grampian Information Conference 2014 - Inspiration for Innovation: from Ideas to Reality