The Business Archives Surveying Officer occassionally works with students to support volunteer placements or dissertation projects.
Goodfellow & Steven, bakery
In January 2025, the Surveying Officer supervised a volunteer placement for the bakers Goodfellow & Steven. Two students undertook 5 weeks of on-site cataloguing in Broughty Ferry. They were well-supported by the business at all times, and it was a fantastic example of teamwork, and provided suitable practical experience alongside their studies. It is likely that following the completion of cataloguing that the collection will be transferred to a public repository.
Scottish Women’s Insitutes
The Surveying Officer is supporting an undergraduate student dissertation (based at the University of Glasgow’s School of Humanities) that will explore the Scottish Women’s Insitutes archive collection (temporarily held at the Ballast Trust). This is a practical dissertation placement where the student will research the records but also develop guidance on record-keeping for individual SWI institutes under supervision from the Surveying Officer and Ballast Trust Archivist.
Thematic Survey – Videogame Industry
In 2024/25 Gerard Mooney is carrying out his masters disseration (based at the University of Glasgow’s Information Studies) which explores the role that records surveying can play in engaging the videogames industry in Scotland with their heritage.
This is a placement based disseration and Gerard will be researching the ways in which business archive surveying in Scotland has engaged business with their records and heritage through surveying as a tool. As the Scottish videogames industry enters its fifth decade of operations and sees the development of a Scottish Government led National Games Strategy, what role is there for heritage in today’s industry? Can a surveying methodology be applied to the videogames industry to engage them with their archives and heritage?
Find out more about this project here.