Deaf Heritage Centre Cabra

The Deaf Heritage Centre in Cabra, Dublin City needed a full catalogue done on their archival collection. The ultimate goal of this project was to create a searchable catalogue and organise the archive room to facilitate later exhibitions at the Heritage Centre. Policies for access and acquisitions, as well as a reader’s form and acquisitions form were also created for the Centre.

While the collection was well organised, sensitive items and items containing GDPR protected information needed to be identified. Re-housing and de-metaling was also necessary for a large number of items. The collection includes materials from the Deaf community and sporting events like the Deaflympics, both the boys and girls Deaf schools, and the various Deaf associations and societies throughout the years. A large amount of the collection consisted of VHS and other forms of video, hearing aid technologies, and hearing test technology. A map of the archive and renumbering of the entire archive was completed to ensure the archive was usable. 

The collection was catalogued to ISAD-G standards in an Excel sheet to facilitate later importing to a web-based catalogue system. This also included removal of duplicate items, marking of sensitive items, and marking of special ephemera and tools that could be dangerous to handle. The Deaf schools taught students vocations and trades so they had skills to bring on past school. Many of the tools used to create these items and items themselves are in this collection, and these items have different storage needs to the rest of the collection, which is mostly paper files. These include needlepoint, shoemaking, and other practical vocations. Recommendations for further work were also made, which included further re-housing, improvements to the storage area, and items of particular interest that would make for interesting exhibitions. The catalogue was set up and explained in a way that further work could easily be completed and items added to the catalogue. Eneclann had previously digitised a large amount of photos for the Centre, and these hard drives were added to the catalogue. 

This project contained a wide variety of items, and is a great example of the work Eneclann excels at. Below are photos and explanations of work done with this organisation. 

(photo one- hearing aid in black box with red and white interior)

This image is an example of the hearing aid technology held in the collection. Since there was no way to mark these items with pencil, a photo catalogue was completed. Each image in this catalogue is accompanied by a description of the item and its location in the archive. 

Example of how the picture catalogue of hearing technology is organised. 

Example of how the main catalogue is organised. 

Example of shoes created by students. 

Example of needlework/embroidery by students.