Libraries and leisure

Exhibitions

Changing displays of documents and images can be seen in the Coffee Lounge, Local Studies Library and Archive Reading Room throughout the year.

National news – local headlines

Display

Before the introduction of headlines, many newspapers had front pages that consisted of small adverts rather than news. In Hertfordshire newspapers, headlines were not much in evidence until the 1930s. This display of reproduced front pages features examples of headlines, and their changing styles, from Hertfordshire newspapers from 1939 through to 2005. They all show headlines that were either Hertfordshire stories that also made the national news, or national stories from a local point of view.

Big Hertfordshire stories featured include the Buncefield explosion in 2005 and the apparently motiveless murder in Furneaux Pelham of retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Workman on his doorstep in 2004. The local angle of a national news story however can take many, sometimes surprising, forms: the young Abbots Langley woman who witnessed the assassination of Gandhi in 1948; the visit of President Gorbachev to Watford in 1989; the bitter winter when Britain froze and the snowbound village of Ayot St Lawrence, cut off from the rest of the world, was liberated in January 1963 by Hertforshire Mercury reporters, closely followed by the postman.

The indexing of newspapers held at HALS is an on-going project but those indexed so far can be found on HALSPIN on the Online Reference Library.

Hidden Histories: 2007 Bicentenary of the Act to Abolish the Slave Trade

Find out more about the links between Hertfordshire, the slave trade and its abolition. Many African Caribbean people came to Hertfordshire before 1807, and have stories to tell. Hertfordshire people took part in the first mass human rights campaign, and were involved in the fight for freedom in Britain, the West Indies and America. Museums, archives, libraries, and community organisations in Hertfordshire will be working together during 2007 to find out more from primary sources, and give a voice to those whose stories have not been heard. Details can be found at
ib.hertfordshire-Community.org.uk/libsleisure/heritage1/HALS/hidden/