Gary Brannan
Keeper of Archives and Research Collections, Library, Archives & Learning Services
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«I am Keeper of Archives and Research Collections here at the Borthwick, which means I have strategic oversight and leadership over its operations. I took an undergraduate degree in History at York and worked here as an Archives Trainee from 2004-05 before moving to the University of Aberystwyth where I qualified with an MSc in Archives Administration in 2006. I then went on to be Archivist at West Yorkshire Archive Service until 2012, when I became their E Services and Offsite Services Coordinator. I returned to York to take up my current role in 2019.»
Our 60 seconds interview with Gary:
What do you do in the field of mental health?
I am part of the team that cares for the collections here at the Borthwick Institute for Archives - and mental health is one of our collection strengths. We hold archives for all of the major mental health care institutions in York, and so we chart the progression in treatment and attitudes to mental wellness in the City, and how institutions in the city - not least The Retreat - worked to pioneer new treatments and approaches.
What do you find most rewarding and inspiring in this work?
It's something that has value to the future, and enables people, whoever and wherever they are, to ask questions of the world around them and how our worldview was shaped. It's an investment to those in the future, and a commitment to those in the past that their lives and voices - lives and voices that may have been marginalised in their lifetimes - can be heard today.
What is the most challenging or complicated aspect of this work?
Ensuring that researchers can access the archives they wish to see, while balancing the ethical and moral considerations in caring for sensitive records of the vulnerable, records which detail incredibly personal and traumatic moments in their lives and not allowing our sense of 'otherness' to reduce their humanity. Along with this, the need to ensure those working with the records - our staff or researchers - have support to deal with the records and their impact on them.
What impact do you hope your work is having- or can potentially have?
It changes lives, often on a very personal level. It can provide understanding and empathy for those researching their own past to those in their lives whose actions, at times, may have been difficult to understand or comprehend, and draws a thread between ourselves, now, and those in the past, who are not so different.
Could you share with us one piece of advice that you follow for your own mental health?
For me, my safety valve is to get out into the wilderness and the moors for a good long walk, feeling the air and taking in the sounds and the sights. Followed by a long late lunch in a good, quiet pub with a book. Nutrition for soul and body.