Have you ever worked on archival documents – and seen the original writers out of of the corner of your eye? Traces of real people from the past are one of the things that archive users get the thrills about when they touch and turn the pages.
Coming back from an intensive FoI/DP session in London yesterday I read Robert Harris’ The Ghost on the train. Got a kick out of seeing the traces of a relative – as themself too! – in the pages. The book’s a thriller. But it’s also about research, traces of evidence, accountability. So the reason for this blog post is not to review the book but to share a few quotations that amused or provoked me.
If you want a family tree, go to a garden centre – that’s what I [the ghostwriter] advise my clients. Nobody else is interested.
There’d definitely be letters if archivists said that to our clients! And I think we might take issue with Ruth Lang, the (fictional!) ex-prime minister’s wife:
“..those archives! They’ve got everything, from his infant school reports to our laundry bills. Typical Mike, to ruin a good story by too much research.”
Don’t write in, people, but there’s definitely an FoI point in there somewhere…
And finally, who could argue with:
This is the trouble with internet research, in my experience. The proportion of what’s useful to what’s dross dwindles very quickly and suddenly it’s like searching for something dropped down the back of a sofa and coming up with handfuls of old coins, buttons, fluff and sucked sweets. What’s important is to ask the right question…
Two really inspiring issues of the Society of Archivists’ ARC magazine (March 2010 and April 2010) on community archives and heritage and on archives in education and learning. Some great case studies included – it’s issues like this that remind us we don’t celebrate the positive stories nearly enough.
Not available online immediately, so non-members will have to check back in a couple of weeks http://www.archives.org.uk/publications/arcthesocietysmonthlymagazine.html – or join up.
Not a lot mentioned (ok, 400 words isn’t much!) about evaluation of activity, though – having been out of this area of work for a couple of years now are we still using ILFA, or still debating about what and how to evaluate? If parent organisations are going to be persuaded to freeze funding, let alone not cut it, impact and outcomes beyond the immediate participants need to be considered and presented?
Today a candidate who admitted “tweeting offensive comments” was removed from standing as a parliamentary candidate. Although Stuart MacLennan had removed his twitter account, cached pages and images remained available – and via a twitter storm in wider circulation than the original tweets (he has been in the top 10 “trending topics” in the UK since this morning).
Recently I finished reading Viktor Mayer-Schönberger’s Delete: the virtue of forgetting in the digital age (Princeton University Press 2009). The book explores the dimensions and implications of digital technology with the result encapsulated as “society’s ability to forget has become suspended, replaced by perfect memory.” Records people, if you haven’t read it yet it’s worth it (but watch out for the weird binding on the BL’s inter-library loan copy which disintegrates on your hands).
Read more…
Really impressed by the new aggregated search Trove from the National Library of Australia http://trove.nla.gov.au
I’ve had a very quick play with it and have been able to find easily sources for part of my family history (I know….). It’s a very attractive site, and seems intuitive to use. Am simultaneously marvelling and grateful at the underpinning standards for description and indexing which has made this possible. no doubt will find some holes but very impressed.
Here’s a picture of some initial search results:
Today (27th January) is Holocaust Memorial Day. This date was chosen as it is the anniversary of the day in 1945 on which the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp. This year is the 65th anniversary of that liberation, and the theme for 2010′s Memorial Day is “The Legacy of Hope“.
BBC History Magazine Jan 2010 issue included an article by Mark Burman on the work of David Boder (born Aron Mendel Michelson, 1886-1961), an academic then at Chicago who during 1946 recorded the immediate experiences of trauma from ‘Displaced Persons’. His recordings are now available on the Voices of the Holocaust website - the earliest known oral histories of the Holocaust, made before most people had begun to deal with their experiences.
Read more…
I’m really excited about A History of the World in 100 Objects which starts tomorrow on Radio 4 (I’ll be listening to the 7.45pm slot, but you can catch it at at 10.45am as well).
The series will look at objects from all over the world – and will span tens of thousands of years of human struggle and achievement. Every object will have been man-made. That is what makes this different. Most histories are based on documents as sources. This takes as a starting point that the craft and inspiration involved in making things can reveal history in a different and complementary way.
There’s a lot of stuff all over the BBC’s website and the British Museum’s site too.
As well as getting the artefacts out of the cases/dusty storerooms (probably more the former?) I think this series will also make us consider ways of doing history. Wish they hadn’t set it up almost in opposition to doing history from documentary sources – documents are artefacts too and can involve craft and inspiration in their creation…
The Great Charter, University of Oxford 1636
