We had the privilege of being joined by twin sisters Grace and Evie, sixth formers from Southfield School in Kettering. They spent a week with us on work experience, learning about the ins and outs of TownsWeb, our different teams, and the work that goes on behind the scenes. In their own words, read about their experience below.
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Hi, we’re Evie and Grace. We're currently in Year 12 and attend Southfield Sixth Form.
The subjects Evie takes are Business, Psychology, and Geography. The subjects Grace takes are Business, History, Psychology and EPQ (Extended Project Qualification).
We are unsure what we would like to do in the future as a career, but we would both like to do a higher-level or degree apprenticeship. Grace has considered becoming a detective in the police and Evie has considered a role in HR, but these are only initial ideas.
Recently, we were given the opportunity to visit TownsWeb Archiving to gain some work experience for a week. During this time, we gained hands-on experience in a workplace environment and acquired valuable skills from different members of the team at TownsWeb. It was interesting to have worked with pieces with historical value from the past.
At the start of the week, we were introduced to the team by our placement leader, Josh. He explained what the company is about and how each area of the business functions. We started off the day by learning how to digitise books, brochures, photos, etc. This gave us an insight and wider understanding into how much work is involved in producing the final outcome, which is the digitised version.
We were also taught how to use their system to transfer the images from the camera onto the computers efficiently, which allowed us to edit the images using a crop tool. Following on, we also digitised film which dated back to the 20th century using a carousel. A key skill required in this role is organisation, as we had to ensure that we kept the film in a consistent order so that the client received their items back in the original state.
Additionally, we spent time with the IT Data Engineer, Oliver, in the software studio. We learnt how digitised images are then passed on to IT to upload to clients’ archives and websites using software called PastView. We had the chance to sit in and listen to an online meeting with a client. During this meeting, we saw how Oliver liaised with the customers and effectively solved any problems that arose in the meeting. We were also shown the coding that goes on behind the scenes in order for the archives and websites to be live.
Furthermore, we spent time with the marketing team and learnt how Paul and April promote the business during events, across different social media platforms and much more. They are responsible for creating promotional material to reach their target audience, designing websites, planning events, analysing outcomes from events and much more. They showed us various examples of projects they worked on, for instance, The London Library.
Overall, we are very grateful for this opportunity to visit a workplace environment and to learn about the key responsibilities each employee has. We learnt how to handle and digitise artefacts carefully. In addition, we discovered how the team at TownsWeb Archiving cleverly connects the past and present using state-of-the-art technology, allowing history to become more accessible to all generations.
We would like to thank Paul Sugden, Josh, our placement leader, and the rest of the team at TownsWeb for providing a friendly workplace environment and teaching us new skills.