We are pleased to tell you about a new GMCDP project which began on 15 October. The 3-year project, funded by Wellcome, will gradually make the GMCDP archive collection available. It is part of the Disabled People’s Archive housed in Archives+ at Manchester Central Library.
The Archive is a collection of documents, reports, books, posters, postcards, audio-visual and other material. It has all been donated to the archive by individuals and disabled people’s organisations, including GMCDP.
The project will continue the work started in 2019, cataloguing the collection so it is available for anyone to view. It will make as much of the collection as possible accessible in a number of ways, for example, making digital copies so people can view them without having to go to Manchester Central Library’s Search Room.
We will research good practice for making archived items accessible in a variety of formats, produce guidelines, and share these with archivists and other interested people. We will, of course, use these guidelines to make as much of our own collection as accessible as possible.
There will be 3 workers: Linda Marsh, Archive Lead, and two others currently being recruited – Archive Assistant and Access and Inclusion Worker. We will be supported by archivists from Archives+, including Larysa Bolton, who has been an important part of making the relationship between GMCDP and Archives+ so successful.
We will carry on adding to the Disabled People’s Archive website created earlier this year.
You can contact the archive by email at archive [at] gmcdp.com
We look forward to sharing the fascinating, interesting, exciting, and yes also sometimes dull, contents of the GMCDP collection over the coming years.
