Promoting the HER

Promoting the HER

HERs should develop an outreach programme that raises awareness of the HER and promotes its wider use. Outreach and engagement may be undertaken by HER staff, or in conjunction with their host organisation and/or partner organisations within the heritage sector. This is essential for developing new audiences and maintaining existing audiences. While there is huge variation between HERs in their approach to outreach and engagement, there are several ways in which all HERs can promote their service at relatively low cost, helping to ensure HERs continue to develop wider and more diverse audiences.

Support Networks

HERs should make use of existing links, frameworks and expertise within their host authority and/or partner organisations. These may include internal and external colleagues based across the sector or in local authority settings such as education, museums, tourism and leisure.

Support networks have been established for education and outreach staff based in museums (GEM: Group for Education in Museums), galleries (ENGAGE: the National Association for Gallery Education) and archives (Archives & Records Association Archives for Learning and Education Group). All of these groups may offer useful sources of ideas and information about outreach and education for HERs.

The regional HER working parties and the HER Forum provide opportunities for HER professionals to discuss new ideas and case studies of outreach work in HERs.

Social Media

Social media is an effective method for information services such as HERs to build and interact with a large online community, to highlight their resources and to share their data. By engaging and interacting with this online community HERs are likely to benefit by raising their profile, by gaining new information to add to the HER, and by acquiring new resources to add to their reference collection.

The ways in which HERs currently use social media differs greatly. Some HERs have social media accounts solely for the HER, while others contribute content to their wider host organisation’s social media presence. When using social media, HERs need to balance the benefits of increasing their audience against the additional time required in order to respond to the interest created through social media. They may also be guided or limited in their use of social media by their host organisation and its corporate communications policies.

Pop-up banners, display boards and exhibitions

Simple pop-up banners and display boards are a useful tool for promoting an HER at a wide range of venues, events and exhibitions. They can range from simple (pull-up or similar) banners with the HER name, an image and contact details, to more detailed displays that may include information about the HER, who it is maintained by, what it contains, how it can be accessed and the uses to which it could be put. These core resources should be designed so that they can be taken to a variety of events, including lectures, talks and presentations being undertaken by HER staff. They may also be loaned out and used at events that the HER will not be involved in and where they may help the HER reach new and more diverse audiences.

Display boards can involve considerable time and resources to design and manufacture. When developing such resources, consideration should be given to ensuring their longevity, both in terms of the quality of their production and the time-sensitive nature of their content. Consideration should also be given as to how any such resources will be distributed to venues and stored when not in use. It may be that one or two ‘core’ display panels suitable for a wide range of uses can be complemented by other, more specific content, to allow the displays to be used at a greater range of events.

Although HERs rarely put on exhibitions of their own, they may be invited to get involved with exhibitions in museums, arts venues, libraries, record offices and other locations. While this may require additional time and resources, such involvement has the potential to attract new audiences and raise awareness of the HER.

Documents

Some HERs disseminate hard copy printed materials promoting their services and resources, including leaflets, newsletters and flyers. Other resources may take the form of leaflets or booklets with a focus on a regional theme such as industrial heritage, or on specific types of sites, finds or archaeological periods. Sometimes these printed resources are targeted at specific user groups, for example packs of information designed for use by schools, or resources produced specifically for use by parish councils or local heritage groups. 

It is often more cost-effective for HERs to contribute content to publications being produced by their host organisation or by other related services. HERs may also benefit by circulating printed resources using outlets within their host organisation, for example libraries, museums, archive centres and Tourist Information points.

Guided walks and heritage trails

HERs are an important tool that can support active participation in the historic environment, for example to develop and inform guided walks and heritage trails. These types of activities may also help promote the HER in the community. They may be developed in-house by HER staff or internal colleagues, or by other organisations such as local heritage groups and civic societies.

Talks and presentations

Many HERs receive requests for talks and presentations, and these should be seen as a good opportunity to promote the HER and its resources. However, only addressing groups that actively make contact is unlikely to reach many new HER users, and it is important to consider more targeted outreach to groups that are currently poorly represented within the HER’s user base.

While preparing a one-off talk will require additional time and resources, the maintenance of a series of ‘standard’ talks, supplemented by local examples for individual groups, can help keep workload on HER staff to a minimum, whilst ensuring relevance and interest for the audience. While some HERs might be able to offer these talks free of charge, in many areas this is now a chargeable service, and many such groups expect to pay a lecture fee and/or expenses.

It is also beneficial for HERs to present to professional colleagues, such as planners, elected members, consultants and architects. As well as fostering good professional working relationships, any such opportunities also help to ensure that professionals working in related fields realise the full potential and value of the HER.

The advent of online and pre-recorded talks and webinars has opened up new, highly cost-effective opportunities for engagement with current and potential users. Any such online events have the potential to reach a much larger audience than a conventional in-person presentation. Pre-recorded talks can be promoted and attract attention long after they have been delivered, again giving greater return on the investment of time and resources.

Education Sector

Engagement with the education sector brings HERs to new audiences, often including people who would not otherwise be aware of or engaged with the historic environment. Educational outreach for schools has been encouraged in the past through local authority networks and links to museums, libraries and archive services. However, such activities are increasingly seen by local authority hosts as an additional/optional element, rather than a core part of an HER service. There is an increasing trend for HER engagement with schools to form part of a wider project with external funding, for example National Lottery Heritage Fund initiatives.

When developing resources for schools it is recommended that HERs consider how their resources fit in to the relevant curriculum.

Less structured, non-curriculum driven, outreach to children and young people should also be encouraged. This could be via collaboration with local museums or Young Archaeologists’ Club.

There is also scope for engagement with higher education, within both universities and adult education. Online or in-person presentations to students and/or key staff to introduce the HER can be beneficial. Some HERs have developed a dialogue with higher education to highlight the potential of HER data to provide subjects for student research. When working with this user group, HERs should be aware of the huge potential that this sector has to analyse, synthesise and enhance HER data. An HER should also emphasise to these groups the importance of sharing their research results with the HER and include licence agreements that specify these arrangements. Building positive working relationships with university departments is likely to improve communications and is likely to increase the submission of data to HERs by those working in universities.

Examples of successful collaborative projects between HERs and educational organisations are shared below:

Objects and Death in Later Prehistoric Britain (project archive on ADS).

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