Our Work

Our aim is to publicise the Conan Doyle Collection locally and internationally. To do this, we attend and create local events and work with other partners on projects to promote access and to the Collection.

The Detectives

The Conan Doyle Collection has received £100,000 from the Arts Council's National Lottery Project Grants Libraries Fund.

The Conan Doyle Collection, bequeathed to the city of Portsmouth by Richard Lancelyn Green, brings together an unparalleled variety of books, documents and objects connected to Holmes and the life of his creator, including unique photographs, film posters, and letters from the influential and the famous.

The Detectives, will be working with partners around the city to recruit participants - Detectives - to create community projects to help people who are looking to return to work or start volunteering to gain work based skills and experience that boosts confidence.

We are looking for people to be involved in this project, in many various ways that suits each individual Detective. The roles could include providing a weekly routine, travelling to and from a venue, interviewing artists, authors or other professional people, working directly with these professionals to develop a project, researching the collection, making the collection accessible, marketing and evaluation - the Detectives will be involved at every level with support at every stage of the process.

Short term experience can also be gained in the following roles:

• Cataloguing archives and magazines supervised by History Centre staff

• Research books and create digital copies of out of copyright editions for BorrowBox with support from library staff

• 'Book of the Week' writing a synopsis and promotion via social media or website/blog with support from library staff

If you would like to find out more please check out our detectives page, or if you would like to apply please fill out this form.

The following are part of this exciting two year project:

The Illusions of Mystery 

An immersive light exhibition using a projector and our Archives as inspiration. This was completed in November 2021 and was part of the We Shine Portsmouth event.

Explore The Illusions of Mystery 

Worldwide Doyle Talks 2022

We are hosting series of lectures inviting authors/fans/academics to talk. We are also providing a public response to discussions and talks that formed from these lectures to showcase talks city wide. 

Explore the Worldwide Doyle Talks

Exhibitions

We are devising 2 exhibitions, in 2022 and 2023,  from the Collection to be publicly exhibited in and around Portsmouth. These will be in locations such as empty shops, pubs, supermarkets or billboards. These could be anything from geocaching, 3D printing to trails. Detectives will be recruited to devise, make and organise these exhibitions.

Explore exhibitions

The Summer of Sherlock 2022 and 2023

The Detectives  will provide support, hire artists/organisations and make decisions in setting up events for Summer of Sherlock. There will also be opportunities to provide practical support at Summer of Sherlock events eg front of house or devising and providing activities based on letters from the archive. This will focus on letters from Arthur Conan Doyle in a writing response project which could be for schools, or general community. 

All workshops and the final products will be accessible for Detectives and our wider family audiences, to entertain, educate and promote the Conan Doyle Collection.

Other projects showcasing The Conan Doyle Collection

• City of Stories

• A Study in Scarlet graphic novel