Friday 9 September 2011

Event - New-look archives relaunch (Sheffield)

AN OFFICIAL opening event will take place to mark the relaunch of the Sheffield Archives building - after a refit costing hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Lord Mayor Coun Sylvia Dunkley is performing the ceremony with Coun Mick Rooney, cabinet member responsible for the archives service.

The building has reopened to the public this week but the official relaunch event is on Wednesday, September 28.

The newly revamped archives building, on Shoreham Street, includes a wealth of precious material dating from the 12th century onwards.

Items include business records, ecclesiastical records, family and estate records, local government records, local public records and records from individuals.

Work has been taking place over the last few weeks to transfer 23,000 items from storage back to the building, which has been redecorated to improve light and reduce dust.

It has also had new air conditioning and boilers and replacement shelving.

The collection contains parish registers from around the area of births, marriages and deaths, plus nationally-important items such as Wentworth Woodhouse and Wharncliffe Estate records, and writings by the poet and philosopher Edward Carpenter.

However only 60 per cent of the collection is being returned.

Instead there is a need to keep the space free at Shoreham Street to house the estimated 700 new boxes of material which are received each year.

The remainder of the archives material will be kept in storage elsewhere and can be accessed by members of the public on request to the archive service.

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