‘What drew me to the BPS archive was that I could see its potential’

How did you first become interested in being an archivist?

I have always been fascinated by history. I went to Newcastle University for a BA in ancient history and loved that. I had volunteered at an archive at the university and later started volunteering at Woburn Abbey and went on to become an archives assistant there. I loved immersing myself in history, I loved the fascinating stories you would learn, and you would find something new every day.

After that, I studied Archives and Records Management at the University of Dundee while I was working as an archives assistant at the Boots UK archives in Nottingham. Working in the Boots archives really opened my eyes to the history of science as well as the history of pharmaceuticals and the high street. As well as the standard records you would expect to find in archives they also had tincture bottles, so many bedpans, old perfume bottles, and rouge, it was just fascinating. It had such a multifaceted history, so many researchers were accessing it to facilitate exciting new projects and that really opened my eyes to how archives can be used.

After Boots, I came to the BPS. Being at the BPS History of Psychology Centre (HOPC) has been fascinating because the history of psychology is so interesting and certain aspects of it are quite under-researched. For example, there isn't enough research into the history of marginalised groups in UK psychology… a lot of what there has been on this topic has focused on America. It's been fascinating to see what the BPS archive holds, and I think what drew me to the BPS archive was that I could see its potential. I could see it was quite an underused asset and a lot needs to be done to it. That opportunity really intrigued me – to take an archive from something which is quite underused, not reaching its potential, and building it to something where there's really innovative research going on, where we're using innovative software to enable access, where it's really adding to psychology and to the Society, and to our understanding of who we are. 

Can you tell me about the archive review?

As I mentioned, when I joined the BPS it was very evident that the archive was underused. To help us come up with a vision and plan for the archives, myself and the Director of Knowledge and Insight worked with independent archive consultants to conduct a review of the archives. We worked with Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan Ltd, from April 2022 for around six months with a final report in September. The methodology of the review was about assessing the historical material in terms of listing it, but also in terms of preservation needs, what kind of state it was in, and reviewing the archive storage. The consultant also conducted stakeholder interviews and workshops so we could better understand what our audience wants from our services.

The key findings from that review have been that the BPS owns a very rich archive, that provides a detailed and unique narrative of the history of UK psychology, and it's a significant collection in terms of the content, that there are a wide range of people who want to use the archives.

But another key finding was that the material is not accessible at all, and it's been neglected. The recommendations that came out of the review have led us to think about collaborative projects, research, and really opening up the archives. One of the recommendations was consolidating the historical collections and getting it into one place because it's been held over several locations for years. We're going to move all of the collection to the BPS Leicester office, where we've commissioned archival standard shelving. We can then have researchers come and visit the collection, we can start a cataloguing project, we can put together volunteer programmes with students where they can list the collection, they can learn about archives, and they can help with preservation and conservation.

The review was really successful – it's given us a five-year plan of how we can achieve these aims for the archive. By the end of the five-year plan ideally, we want to get Archive Service Accreditation which is awarded by the National Archives, that would demonstrate that HOPC is following good practice and archival standards, that we provide an efficient service, and that we are continuously developing and improving the archives. 

Tell me about some of your aims with the BPS archive following that review.

The aim of the BPS archives now is really to be the premier archive for the history of UK psychology. During my time at the BPS it's been very apparent that we have one of the most significant archives on the history of UK psychology, and what you can do with that is limitless in terms of research. We're hoping to do more external collaborations and have recently got funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a four-year PhD student to conduct a research doctorate looking at the archives as the primary resource. The title of the PhD is 'A LGBTQIA+ Black and Marginalised History of the British Psychological Society 1892- 2022'. This is just an example of the research projects we want to conduct to enable new insights and open up the archives. 

We also want to be leaders in the field of applying new software to archival collections. We have a new Data and Analytics team at the BPS, and we are looking at applying Artificial Intelligence and text mining to the archives. The archives we have are quite text-heavy and very dense. We have a lot of minutes, meeting papers, government papers and guidelines. With something like that it would take multiple years for researchers to trawl through it and find what they're looking for. Some organisations have started to use AI and text mining already, where AI is used to understand and organise huge amounts of data to save time and make new connections. We are scoping a pilot project to apply this to a sample area of the collection.

A lot of what we're trying to do now is make the collection accessible – whether that means digitisation of certain aspects of the collection or a wider range of people visiting the archives. We want the archives to be accessible for there to be continuous research projects with multiple higher education institutions, but also for members to utilise the archives. There's no point having an archive if it's not being used and it's not being seen. 

Can you tell me about some of the gaps in the archive, and how you decide what to include in the collection?

Active archive collecting has a few different avenues. One of the main avenues is that, as we're an archive that sits within the British Psychological Society, we get many records from the workings of the BPS. One of the things that we're also trying to do is tighten up records management within the Society – that's not only making sure that the Society is working in an efficient way, but that it is also GDPR compliant and that historically significant records are being transferred to the archive.

One of the other avenues is from donors – from people outside the organisation whoever they may be – psychologists or relatives of psychologists – donating personal papers of themselves or a relative to the archives.

Another recommendation from the review was for us to tighten up our collections development policy – which refers to how we want to develop our collection in terms of content. We want to identify the gaps in the collection, we are identifying what aspects of the history of UK psychology are missing or not represented in the archive. Part of that involves doing a call-out for those types of archives.

Recently we've done a call-out for records related to Black psychologists because we're aware that the archives at the moment is very white and European, and we want the archives to represent all the diverse voices within psychology. We have put a call out for these records in the hope that we will get donations. We also want to record oral histories and people can suggest individuals to for us to interview. It's about always thinking about what's an interesting and/or underrepresented story within UK psychology and what stories are important for us to preserve for future generations?

As an archive, we constantly want to develop our understanding of what we should be collecting, especially how do you convey or represent in an archive that which has been left out of history or hidden? It's a difficult topic and it's a difficult thing to do. We're always interested in new suggestions of what we could be collecting and what we could be adding to the archives. 

Can you tell me about some of the most interesting things you've come across in the BPS archives?

What immediately pops to mind is the psychological test collection. People probably don't realise that, whilst in the BPS archives we obviously collect the history of the BPS, we also collect the history of UK psychology outside of the BPS. We have a large collection of psychological tests dating back to the 1930s up until the present day. They are just amazing to look at.

There are all manner of psychological tests – developmental, IQ, personality, occupational, and they are all so different. Some of them come in huge suitcases, the developmental ones often have toys with them and illustrated cards with family members.

There are intelligence tests and IQ tests, which are quite topical at the moment in terms of what IQ tests actually tell us and how the mass adoption of IQ tests has affected society – especially marginalised people. There's been more awareness about the people who came to the UK from Caribbean countries and how the children were treated in the British educational system. 

For example, Caribbean children, of course, used some different words compared with British people when referring to the same thing. These IQ tests would ask children questions like 'what is this picture' and it would be a picture of a tap, but children from the Caribbean called taps 'pipes', but answering 'pipe' would be classed as incorrect. 

This story was also captured in our recent oral history with Waveney Bushell, the first Black educational psychologist in Britain. There were so many cultural misunderstandings, and you can imagine how traumatic it might have been for young children and their families coming here from the Caribbean, into schools with a predominantly white population, and coping with institutional racism. A disproportionate amount of Black children were sent to schools for the 'Educationally Sub-normal' where their opportunities for learning were extremely limited.

The tests show so much about what we valued as a society, what we thought was intelligence, what we thought were 'correct' answers. It's just fascinating how different the tests are, how they've evolved since the 30s, the different stories they tell and how ideas have changed. 

See more information about the BPS collections and archives.
See more about the archive appeal for records relating to Black psychologists.