This Saturday (28/01/12) the National Library will hold it’s first open day of 2012. During this marathon of a day there will a number of events, some highlights include films in the Drwm theatre with ‘Pictwrs y Plant’ (children’s films) in the morning, and in the afternoon a showing of a film of Aberystwyth in the 1920’s. There will be a selection of entertaing talks with Professor April McHahon the Vice-chancellor of Aberystwyth University, a talk by Will Troughton about Aberystwyth Photographers and a special talk by the newsreader Huw Edwards about his new series ‘The Story of Wales’.

There will also be an introduction to of one of the Screen and Sound Archives most interesting sound collection, the Ceredigion Library Oral History Collection (‘Casgliad Llyfrgell Ceredigion’). A vast collection of oral history of the Ceredigion area. On show will be extracts from Mr Tom MacDonald talking about the history of Capel Bangor, the history of Penuwch by Mr Dafydd Edwardes, Evan Jones will be talking about his memories of Llanfarian, an interesting incite to the old Aberystwyth harbour with Captain William Ellis, Captain Jack Williams and Mr Howell Ellis. Mrs Katie Morris will be remembering her career as a teacher and Mrs Lewis, Aberaeron will be talking about Cribyn before and during the First World War.

The door’s will be open and everyone is welcome, so come along!

Last week Anwen Jones (our Access Officer) and I attended seminar at the National Museum in Cardiff which focused on the Welsh Baccalaureate and how archives, museums and libraries can support its teaching in schools by providing relevant resources and experiences for the pupils who are engaged with it. By now most secondary schools in Wales offer the ‘Welsh BAC’, as it’s referred to – currently for the upper years only, but soon it will also be introduced for the 14+ age group. Pupils can choose from a wide range of ’strands’ to study, alongside their A Level courses – from hair and beauty to systems of government worldwide! The points that they earn for completing the various sections (through classwork, community involvement, individual research etc), count towards the necessary points for access to higher education.

We enjoyed several entertaining and unexpected presentations by organisations such as Big Pit, the Centre for Alternative Technology, and the National Library itself courtesy of Owen Llywelyn, the Library’s Senior Education Officer – and began to gather ideas about which films from the Archive might be of interest to schools in terms of supporting their ‘BAC’ sessions. The most surprising presentation was the demo by the Centre for Alternative Technology of their use of a clothes line and pegs to explain the amazing, cross-continental journey of the ‘Kinder Egg’ from start to its end in the hands of eager children! It will be hard act to follow that with film – but we’ll do our best…

We’ve recently been working on a project to digitise film clips of Lloyd George.

He made his name at the turn of the twentieth century, becoming Prime Minister in 1916, and was the first British statesman to be captured at length on the fledgling new medium of  film. We have some wonderful footage depicting his life, both documentary and family films,  and of course the amazing ‘lost’  biopic of 1918.

For the moment we’ve just put them up on our website so that everyone can see them but plans are in development to use them more creatively in future…

Check them out, and if  you only see one film, the one to go for is Lloyd George visiting Hitler at his holiday home in 1936.

As we’re all winding for the Christmas break and tidying our desks, I’ve been looking back at this year…

2011 has been a busy year for us and one of the highlights has been celebrating our 10th anniversary.We also said ‘goodbye’ to the former Head of the Archive, Iestyn Hughes, as he retired back in March, and said ‘hello’ to Dafydd Pritchard, the current Head of the Archive.

Over the past year, we’ve held screenings all over Wales, from Llandudno to Capel Isaac, and from Milford Haven to Newtown, and attracted over a thousand people to these events.

We’ve also worked with students at Coleg Ceredigion to create new films from our amateur film collections, and were awarded the 2012 Olympic Games Inspire Mark for the project.

One of my personal highlights was the screening of the Bandits of Mawddwy films at Dinas Mawddwy in September, which attracted a crowd of around 250 people. The 1936 and 1938 films were also a subject of a special episode of Pethe, which attracted a lot of positive feedback.

I’m now looking forward to 2012 and thinking of new ways to reach new audiences and sharing our collections.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Tomorrow, I’ll be attending an ‘Introduction to Social Media’ course, hosted by Arts and Business Cymru.  It will hopefully enable us to maximise the use of social media as a marketing tool, and to reach new audiences in the future.

Next Monday and Tuesday evening (21 and 22 November), the Archive will be at Neuadd Dwyfor, Pwllheli, helping them celebrate a hundred years of screening films at the venue. Different films will be shown on both nights, and will include classics such as the restored Y Chwarelwr (the Quarryman), and Etifeddiaeth, and also highlights from the big ‘lost’ film The Life Story of David Lloyd George (1918), and also local archive films from the Pwllheli area from 1911 onwards – including carnivals, Eisteddfod and an early aeroplane…not going very far! Silent movie pianist, Paul Shallcross will be there on the Monday evening to provide live piano accompaniment.

Both shows will start at 7:30pm. Tickets are available from Neuadd Dwyfor, Penlan Street, Pwllheli – 01758 704 088 or E-mail – neuadd_dwyfor@gwynedd.gov.uk

Over the past few weeks, we have been very busy with various screenings, and have attracted large audiences in the process.

A few weeks ago, on  20 October, we screened The Last Days of Dolwyn at the Regent Cinema in Newtown. We also screened local archive footage of Newtown before the main feature, and this included footage of the 1947 snow and the 1950 Newtown Carnival. This screening was part of the National Library’s Outreach Programme, and part of a range of events which have been taking place in the town over the past few months.

An audience of 110 came along to the cinema to enjoy the film. They were welcomed by Dafydd Prichard, the Archive Manager. We’d like to thank the staff of the Regent Cinema for all their help and assistance.

Last Friday night, we went to Cwmlline, to screen archive films from the area. Cwmlline is a small village about 8 miles north of Machynlleth. Again, a large audience attended to view a variation of films from the Machynlleth area. The films varied from the National Eisteddfod in Machynlleth in 1937 to footage of the Royal Welsh Show held in Machynlleth in 1954 and footage of the local show in Cemmaes in 1940.

There was a suprise for the audience at the half time interval as well, as local woman, Heulwen Williams, was awarded the Wedi 3’s Halen y Ddaear (salt of the earth) prize for all her hard work in the local community. TV presenter, Alwyn Humphreys arrived at the hall to suprise Heulwen and the audience. This will be broadcast on Wedi 3 in the next few weeks.