I have just read an entry on the e-Foundation blog referring to Jakob Nielsen’s alertbox entry ‘Write Articles, Not Blog Postings’ where he relates an incident where he advised a ‘world leader in his field’ to invest time in writing articles rather than starting a blog, which Nielsen seems to define (erroneously I would say) as posting numerous short comments on blogosphere discussions. It may be true that blog entries do not always represent highly detailed, top quality, innovative thinking, but I think that many blogs are well worth reading and perform a useful function. As Andy Powell says on the e-Foundation blog, Nielsen does seem to be assuming that a blog entry is always superficial and derivative.

It is true that we started the Archives Hub blog without any real in-depth analysis of the cost and benefits of doing so, and that we weren’t thinking of posting ground-breaking content, but maybe the material point is that we started it with the notion that we could just try it out and see how it goes. I suppose this is one of the underlying drivers of Web 2.0, and we felt that at the very least it would be useful to post news, with hopefully some ideas and comments that would be useful to archivists and others working in similar areas. Whilst the pressure to blog can sometimes be kind of intimidating, there is no doubt that a blog entry is often forthcoming where an article for a peer reviewed journal would never materialise. I am sure that we are not alone in this situation. Apart from the fact that we are not strictly research staff, and could not find the time to write in-depth articles of this nature, we also want to be immediate and current and we see great advantages in the immediacy of a blog.

Nielsen says that weblogs are useful for business projects and for sites that sell cheap products. Well, I beg to differ. Whilst many blogs are not terribly useful for my work, I have feeds for a few dozen that I think are well worth casting my eye over. I can just read the posts that seem most relevant and interesting to me. I am generally more likely to do this than to search out articles in academic journals.

P.S. I should say that I have generally found Nielsen’s alertbox to be useful and worthwhile. I well remember his top 10 mistakes in Web design providing invaluable advice, back in the days when I had little idea about usability and accessibility.

The recent Research Portals for Arts and Humanities (RePAH) study found that

I’ve just been reading Taking Part: The National Survey of Culture, Leisure and Sport Annual Report 2005-2006. Well, i’ve been reading the conclusions and then reading the archive bits, as its rather long and i’m less interested in those taking part in active sport and gambling.

Anyway, it seems that ‘6 percent of all adults attended an archive at least once during the past twelve months.’ That’s about 2.4 million, which is a respectable number. Almost all of these had engaged in other cultural or sporting activities. With my Archives Hub bias I am immediately struck by the fact that this survey is about physical visits to archives and so misses out on satisfied users who have got the information that they needed from online resources.

I was a little surprised that the majority had visited (I can’t use the word ‘attended’ – it doesn’t sound right) just once or twice (80%). I would have thought a larger proportion would have visited several times in a year. I was pleased to see that though attendance by ethnicity showed that adults from white ethnic backgrounds had higher rates of attendance, there were still significant proportions from other ethnic groups visiting archives. The figures for attendance by qualification showed the majority of visitors had A-levels or above and the age range was pretty much as expected.

We are of course always keen to attract more people to use archives, but not so encouraging was the fact that the largest majority who had not visited one said they had ‘no need to go’. I think there will always be a significant proportion who are not, at least on the surface, interested in documented history, but having said that, through exhibitions and interactive events we might persuade some of these people that archives can be relevant to them, even if they are not interested in sitting in a reading room. There were 14% who said that visiting an archive had not occurred to them, so this is a potential group to tap into.

From the point of view of the Hub, the 14% who felt that they might visit an archive if there was better information on how to find material are a significant group, as our mission is really to enable users to find archive materials more easily. The survey collected data from 28,000 people, so 14% is pretty significant. However, we can’t do much about the 30% who would visit if they had more free time!

I attended a very stimulating, thought-provoking and exhausting event yesterday, to discuss the possible implementation of an e-information infrastructure for arts and humanities. It was organised by the Research Information Network (RIN) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). E-information infrastructures include all kinds of digital content resources and the infrastructure than underpins them.

The day was so full, and covered so much, that it is difficult to summarise. A number of projects were presented, including Research Portals in the Arts and Humanities (RePAH), Gathering Evidence: Current ICT use and Future Needs for Arts and Humanities Researchers, Peer Review of Digital Resources and Log Analysis of Internet Resources (LAIRAH).

I thought I would just list some of the key points that were made, areas that were discussed and general conclusions reached. This is not a comprehensive record of the discussion but just my impression of the points that came up:

• The arts and humanities research community is diverse heterogeneous and complex and so it is very difficult to characterise and to come up with a set of needs and wants.
• The question was raised as to whether we can really talk about an arts and humanities community at all
• Libraries and archives play a critical role but the library focus will need to extend beyond books and journals
• Institutional repositories will come to play a key role
• We are not really clear where we are at present in terms of the research landscape, let alone where we are going. There is currently no clear direction.
• We would benefit from a clear map of resources available and the various organisations that provide data, advice and support
• We do not think enough about issues of re-usability of resources
• Interoperability is of paramount importance
• Sustainability is a key issue. We do not continue to care for, update and generally make the most of many research outputs. Not enough attention is paid to the benefits of a project after the funding has finished
• Evidence of use and evidence of value are different things, and should be treated separately. We do not have enough information about either, especially evidence of value
• The gathering and analysis of evidence is key
• An e-information infrastructure must be user-driven, though it was acknowledged that users do not always know what they want or need (and cannot predict what might be available to them in the future)
• Amalgamated resources are hugely important
• Researchers will take up and use digital resources when they are readily available
• It may be that we don
  

Farewell and bon voyage to Amanda Hill, the Archives Hub’s Service Manager, who leaves the Hub today to head for Canada. We wish Manda and her family all the best.