Author Archives: hawkinsabbie

Volunteering at the Portico – Part 5

Over the past 2 months I have volunteered in a number of different capacities at the Portico library: Further book cleaning and minor-repairs using glue: using 3 different types of glue including ‘Cellugel’ described as ‘A safe, penetrating consolidant for leather book cover affected by red rot (powdery deterioration). Will not harm paper or otherContinue reading “Volunteering at the Portico – Part 5”

Volunteering at the Portico – Part 4: Conservation cleaning

For the second day of collections care or conservation cleaning with Jim, myself and another volunteer cleaned 2 shelves of oversized books including the shelf itself (shown in the photograph at the beginning of this post). Very simply we were instructed to do the following: Remove the books from the shelf and carefully carry themContinue reading “Volunteering at the Portico – Part 4: Conservation cleaning”

Volunteering at the Portico – Part 3

Over the past 2 weeks I have volunteered at the Portico during the following events: Thomas De Quincey’s Confessions of an English Opium Eater – talk by Journalist and Historian Ed Glinert. I was primarily responsible for preparing for the event, serving and selling drinks, arranging furniture and assisting people while they viewed and handledContinue reading “Volunteering at the Portico – Part 3”

Volunteering at the Portico, Part 2: Conservation cleaning

On 13th October 2021 myself and another volunteer had our first collections care session with Jim Duff (former book binder and head of collections care for University of Manchester at the John Rylands Library, Main Library and more). The session could be viewed as a basic introduction to the principles of book conservation but alsoContinue reading “Volunteering at the Portico, Part 2: Conservation cleaning”

Volunteering at the Portico – Part 1

Last week (mid-October 2021) I started a volunteers programme at the Portico Library. The Portico is one of Manchester’s longest-running institutions whose historic collection spans over 450 years. It was founded in 1806 by 400 subscribers including authors, future prime-ministers, scientists and educators. As stated on the website: Built with wealth derived from the IndustrialContinue reading “Volunteering at the Portico – Part 1”

Iñaki Bonillas, Words and Photos (2014) Dia Web Projects

When first entering the webpage for Words and Photos by Iñaki Bonillas, you’re met with the below screen. You are invited to enter a word and along the bottom of the screen there are two lines of seemingly unrelated words. I enter the word ‘thunder’ and nothing appears, but the word thunder moves to theContinue reading “Iñaki Bonillas, Words and Photos (2014) Dia Web Projects”

Workers Leaving Gossage’s Soap Works, Widnes (1901)

I often like to research my family history using the Ancestry website, I have dipped in and out of it for years but put the most work into it in around 2014. I asked my Grandad and my mum to send photographs of my ancestors; I’ve got a particularly memorable one of my Grandmother asContinue reading “Workers Leaving Gossage’s Soap Works, Widnes (1901)”

Epiphany Moment

This blog post will describe the ‘epiphany’ that inspired this research – what Lorraine Daston describes as the life-changing moment that causes one to question other aspects of life. As stated in previous posts, for me this occurred when interacting with physical (non-digital) objects and having a visceral reaction as a result. Daston articulated thisContinue reading “Epiphany Moment”

Developing a Facebook page as a research tool

I am preparing to set up a Facebook page for my dissertation research. Below I’ll briefly summarise 2 key pieces of literature that will help me to design the page, consider the challenges, ethical considerations and different uses of the platform. The first text is an article titled: Facebook as a Research Tool for theContinue reading “Developing a Facebook page as a research tool”