RCSI Heritage Collections

In March 2024, I joined RCSI Library as project archivist to appraise and catalogue a couple of discreet archive collections within their Heritage collections. The first collection I am tackling is RCSI's Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, as they are celebrating their 50 th anniversary this coming October. My progress and some findings on this particular collection will be the subject of my first RCSI Heritage Collections blog.   The RCSI Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery was founded in 1974 and is one of the longest-serving providers of nurse education in Ireland. It provides registered nurses and midwives with education and training at the highest standard to support the maintenance of their professional development and competence. The Faculty of Nursing consists of a Dean and twelve members who constitute the Board of the Faculty and it is bound by the constitutions of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and the Council of the College. In addition, there is also full time a...

Some of our students may be in the thick of studying for exams at the moment and wondering when is it all going to end?! Some are celebrating with their well-earned results in hand, honouring the long held tradition of  rushing the RCSI Library  on results day, in which case - congratulations! Whatever stage they are at, studying for exams is synonymous with college life. No need to fear them though! All that blood, sweat and tears will be worth it in the end. Here in Heritage Collections we hold an array of material relating to exams including past papers from the early 1900's onwards and examination results registers going all the way back to 1793. Ever wonder what type of questions were students being asked at RCSI exams 100 years ago?? Take a look: Sample First & Second Professional Examinations, 1917.  Click on image to enlarge. And after the exams come results! Going by these examples you can see that just like today, students back then were striving f...

Through an archive mailing list the RCSI Heritage Collections receives unusual, thought provoking, amusing and sometimes really weird articles about all things archives. Edge of your seat stuff! Recently a couple of articles have got us thinking about future generations looking back at our time on this earth. Will they be able to open the discs, USB, hard drives we currently use to store our memories, photos, thoughts? Will they be able to read the emails we have saved, the drafts of stories we have written, the letters we have typed and sent? Computers have come along way and so has the software we use on them. Just take a look below at some of the hardware used over the decades! ENIAC World War II computer  Ferranti Pegasus Computer 1950s/1960s ISC colour computer 1980s Early Microsoft laptop Apple computer 1982 Tablet used by millions today Vint Cerf, co-creator of the internet, and a group of like minded c...

RCSI Heritage Collections are delighted to take part in Explore Your Archives 2015. This campaign strives to highlight the intriguing and magical nuggets of history waiting to be found and studied in archives throughout the country.   Explore Your Archives 2015 As we are heading into 2016 and a year of fabulous exhibitions, lectures, events commemorating the 1916 Easter Rising, our story box focuses on a unique item that directly relates to that time. Visit the Learn About Archives website to find out more about these story boxes and wondrous collections.   Plus check out the Explore Your Archive events page to see what is happening this week and over the coming months. Go forth and explore! The beautiful Vatican Archives - Researched and written by Meadhbh Murphy

Special collections and archives house unique one-off priceless pieces of historically valuable and irreplaceable material. This material can be made out of paper, skin, wood, bone, metal, animal – you name it and it is most likely stored away and cared for in an archive. When you think of these unique and priceless items; the Book of Kells, the Magna Carta, a letter written by Padraig Pearse. These are the types of things that can spring to mind.......not necessarily sweet wrappers. But never fear lovers of all things sweet and  confectionery  related! There is an  archivist or two out there who is  squirrelling away all the  shiny  paper, crinkly bags, plastic wrappings that once covered sweets of any and every sort. Yummy sweets from the 1980s Want to know more about these  confectionery  collectors or indeed why they exist?? Click here and here        H a p p y H a l l o w e e n ...

A few years ago a group of primary school children were asked what they thought of when they heard the word 'archivist'. After the initial 'an archi-what?' was answered, the children set about compiling a list of what the characteristics of an archivist are..... They don't know how right they got it those child geniuses!!  But if you ask people, young or old, 'what does an archivist do?' majority of the time you will get either a furrowed brow as the inner depths of the brain search for an answer other than 'archive stuff' or a completely blank look of terror. Fear no more! The article below answers that universal question...  What do archivists do all day?  - Researched and written by Meadhbh Murphy