This week it is time to introduce Holly, who is also with us until September, as the practical element of the Museum Studies MA.
My name is Holly Fletcher, and I am a currently completing my eight-week placement at the University of Leicester Archives and Special Collections, whilst concluding my journey towards a postgraduate degree in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester.
During my first week, I was given the opportunity to learn the process of accession box listing using the archive’s Casson Mann material. Casson Mann gets its name from designers Dinah Casson and Roger Mann, who founded the company in 1984 and specialised in museum, exhibition, and interior design projects. Much of the material consisted of rolled up, large format architectural drawings of various design projects from the 1980s and 1990s, many of which being museum exhibition spaces. I made note of any relevant information that I observed on the drawing sheets and added it to the spreadsheet, quickly familiarising myself with what is required for each field.
Due to my prior experience in architecture as an undergraduate student, I was able to differentiate the types of orthographic drawings that were included, such as plans, sections, elevations, and detail drawings, as well as other 3D and axonometric drawings that each provide clients and contractors with different details of the proposed scheme.
Some of the tubes containing the rolled-up drawings were excessively full, meaning it was particularly necessary to sort through these and remove any material that may be less appropriate to keep, considering space and resources.
This task was interesting for two main reasons. Firstly, it was my introduction to accession box listing/accessioning which I know to be an essential responsibility for archivists when material is received into an archive, but also my first venture into hands-on archive experience in general. Secondly, it was interesting to observe museum and gallery design drawings from the perspective of someone transitioning academically from Architecture to Museum Studies and seeing how these two topics can converge.
In addition to the physical material of the Casson Mann collection, during week one, I was asked to begin describing digital material submitted by participants for the 2025 and 2026 Museum Studies Heritage Specialism Modules. It has been interesting to learn the different responsibilities of an archivist, as well as how these tasks might differ depending on the type of collection or format.
After completing my listing work with the Casson Mann material, I moved on to my main task involving material from the design company Metaphor, who specialised in master planning, exhibition design and architecture. I have begun to sort through the accessioned boxes of Metaphor material, rearranging it to be grouped by job/ client, so that cataloguing can take place in due course. Unlike the material for Casson Mann, much of the Metaphor items are smaller in scale, mostly A4 and A3, with many drawings or documents being grouped together as books (Fig. 2). Additionally, this collection is not limited to paper, containing several CDs, photographs, projector slides, and physical models, to name a few.
It was established early on that I would be using selected material from the Metaphor collection to create a display for one of the University of Leicester Library display cases about Metaphor’s work, with the specific theme to be decided by myself. I have been considering this as I sort through and read the material for each project, with some jobs, such as the Olympic Museum in Lausanne or the Nasjonalmuseet in Oslo, standing out to me as potential focal points.
Thank you Holly, for that summary of your work over the last few weeks. And thank you to Luna too – you have both made a great start and I am looking forward to helping you learn and achieve lots over the rest of the placement.
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