Regular Shifts

Hours: between 3 and 6 hours per week

Based: Remote working

Join us at Oldham Archives as we deliver Headliners: Revealing Real Life Through the Oldham Chronicle. Funded through The National Archives’ Archives Revealed fund, this cataloguing and engagement project aims to improve access to the Oldham Chronicle Archive and engage communities with stories to be found in the collection. The project is built around three themes identified through community consultation: Real life in Oldham, Sporting history and Documenting diasporas.

Many people from Oldham remember having their photograph taken by an Oldham Chronicle photographer and sometimes seeing it in the newspaper. You could buy copies of photographs from the office on Union Street. The Oldham Chronicle Archive includes the original photographic negatives from the 1930s to the 2010s as glass plates, medium format sheets, 35mm strips and digital files. These negatives are indexed in bound notebooks covering 1936-1992. The indexes describe the images and give an indication of whether they were printed in the Chron. Headliners will help us to preserve the index books and digitise the information in them, alongside documenting, digitising and preserving the original negatives.

We have a remote volunteer activity available as part of Headliners to help us do this. We are looking for people who are interested in one or more of the project themes and can commit between 3 and 6 hours per week for up to 18 weeks during the activity timeframe. This activity is an opportunity to learn new skills, find out more about the photographic material in the Oldham Chronicle Archive and contribute to making this wonderful archive more accessible to the people of Oldham and beyond.

The activity has a set timeframe, but you do not need to commit to the full period of work. We want to build a team of volunteers who can take part in our work when they have time and who want to keep volunteering with us.

Activity: Transcription of photographic index books

Timeframe: November 2026 to March 2027 (18 weeks)

Key Tasks: You will read the handwritten entries from a pdf scan of each index book allocated to you and type the entries into a spreadsheet template provided by the project.

Requirements: People who can commit between 3 and 6 hours per week for up to 18 weeks and who have access to a Windows 11 PC or laptop with the latest version of Microsoft Excel or the Apache Open Office spreadsheet application Apache OpenOffice Calc installed. You will be supported by the Headliners Project Archivist and by Oldham Archives’ permanent Archivist.

Overview: You will work on index volumes from the period 1970-1992. You will be allocated up to 6 volumes that cover a 2-year period, depending on how many weeks you can offer. Each volume will have its own transcription spreadsheet, emailed to you when you start transcribing each volume. The scanned pages from each volume will be emailed to you as a single pdf. You will be given a set of written instructions to refer to. After you complete the transcription of each pdf, you will send back the spreadsheet. After your work is checked and any corrections made, if you are happy to continue, the spreadsheet and pdf for the next volume will be emailed to you.

Archives Revealed is the only grant programme in the United Kingdom dedicated to cataloguing and unlocking archival collections. The programme is funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Pilgrim Trust, the Wolfson Foundation and The National Archives. Its goal is to ensure that significant archive collections—representing the lives and perspectives of people across the UK—are made accessible for public research and enjoyment.

What's involved?

Reading old handwriting in index books recording the photographic negatives from the Oldham Chronicle, and making accurate copies in a spreadsheet.

Why get involved?

Get hands on with original material from the Oldham Chronicle Archive, learn how to read old handwriting and make an accurate copy in a spreadsheet, meet new people and help Oldham Archives make its collection easier to use.

How to get involved?

Register your interest here and the Volunteer Coordinator will be in touch.