Anne Lister project’s award win
WEST YORKSHIRE Archive Service (WYAS) has been announced as the overall winner of this year’s national Archives & Records Association (ARA) Archive Volunteering Award for its Anne Lister Diary Digitisation and Transcription Project.
The award is designed to recognise and celebrate the outstanding work involving volunteers within the archive sector and to promote good practice in volunteering.
WYAS’s Anne
Lister
Diary
Digitisation and Transcription Project is a ground-breaking project which set out to transcribe the diaries of Anne Lister of Shibden Hall, 1806-1840. Anne was the inspiration for the BBC drama ‘Gentleman Jack’ written by Sally Wainwright.
The project was launched in July 2019 and is an ongoing project which is expected to require an estimated 16,000 to 20,000 volunteer hours. Anne’s diaries, which consist of around five million words, cover all aspects of her life in intimate detail; her relationships with women, her business dealings, estate management, education, and her personal health and well-being.
Dan Sudron, Calderdale Archivist
at West Yorkshire Archive Service, said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the ARA Archive Volunteer Award 2020. We have over 150 volunteers who have actively engaged online in what is an exciting and challenging transcription project, and we have been amazed by their enthusiasm and dedication. Many of our ‘Code Breakers’ have a personal and emotional connection with Anne’s story and the project has enabled them to interact with an active community of fellow transcribers.
“They will be thrilled to learn about this award. It’s a fantastic acknowledgement of their hard work and a great recognition of the huge significance of this important archive collection and the power of archives in general to bring people together.”
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