Our Archives service is celebrating after winning two awards at the Nottinghamshire Heritage Awards 2012 on Wednesday 18 July.
The Gertrude Savile’s Twitter Diary was inspirational according to judges on the Awards panel and won the Inspiration Award for Best Special Project.
The project aimed to reach new audiences by interpreting the history of Rufford Abbey through the Savile family estate archives. Focussing on the lives of individuals who lived at Rufford, the project delved into the abbey’s history, bringing individual stories to life.
One of these stories was Gertrude Savile. Her diary contained daily entries that were heavily abbreviated, listed by time of day and location - just like typical twitter activity today.
Gertrude’s Twitter @gertrudesavile has 538 followers and has sent 2154 tweets. Historians and broadcasters are amongst those who have either followed Gertrude or retweeted her comments - reaching over 500,000 people.
Due to public demand, the second phase of the project will provide greater access to Gertrude's diaries via digitised images of the originals, allowing even more people to follow Gertrude's adventures.
Nottinghamshire Archives also won a Special Acknowledgement of Outstanding Achievement Award for the quality of work carried out by the team.
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