Category: archives hub

From our special correspondent

/ Jane Stevenson

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral
Sofia 2006: 8-10 November – Globalization, Digitization, Access, and Preservation of Cultural Heritage – has been a successful conference where the participants had the opportunity to share knowledge, learn and meet new friends. Sofia is a cultural city with extraordinary buildings like the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. The Bulgarians are very friendly people and proud of sharing the beauty of their country with visitors. The high quality of their cuisine and their smooth wines with a strong tradition in the whole country was the perfect attraction to add to the Conference. Just a little note for future tourists: nodding your head in Bulgaria means No and shaking it means Yes, you can get into funny situations if you don’t remember this!

Report and photo by Laura Fernandez, Project Archivist of the Thomas Sharp Project, School of Architecture, Planning & Landscape, and Special Collections, Robinson Library, Newcastle University.

Constructive comments

/ Jane Stevenson

Foamhenge Could there be such a thing as experimental archives science, in the same way as experimental archaeology? What sort of experiments might it involve? And could there be, say, an office building constructed for archives training purposes, along the same lines as the crime scene houses for forensic science training at the University of Central Lancashire?

Illustration: ‘Foamhenge’, Wiltshire, 2005. Photograph by Alun Salt. Image courtesy of Archaeology Image Bank. This reminds me of the short story "FOAM", 1991, by Brian Aldiss. The acronym stands for "Free Of All Memory".

Top ten Archives Hub users

/ Amanda Hill

The table below shows the top ten UK institutional users of the Archives Hub service for the 2005/06 academic year (courtesy of the JISC’s Monitoring Unit).

Institution Name % of ac.uk use Rank 2005/6 Rank 2004/5
University of Manchester 15.38 1 4
Oxford University 8.96 2 2
Manchester Computing 7.34 3 3
University of Cambridge 7.29 4 1
University of Edinburgh 7.23 5 5
University of Glasgow 5.57 6 19
University of Liverpool 2.28 7 6
University of Aberdeen 2.21 8 15
University of Wales, Bangor 2.11 9 14
University of Nottingham 1.94 10 13

Hoo, hwæt, why, when, where, how

/ Jane Stevenson

Wind-up/Solar radio, tuned to Radio 4 Hwaet is the opening of the epic poem Beowulf, which I found online (although the exclamation mark used in the November feature’s title is just artistic licence on my part). The idea for a feature on the Anglo-Saxons came from an interview I heard on BBC Radio 4, where the Anglo-Saxons were described as being pushed from the curriculum.

Previous features have also been inspired by Radio 4 – hearing an interview with the parents of Mark ‘Insect Circus‘ Copeland on Home Truths led to Insects and Entomologists. And hearing Paul Scholfield reading part of The Waste Land on Radio 4 led to Hurry Up Please It’s Time.

If I was any good at geography, perhaps I’d do a feature inspired by the oddly evocative shipping forecast …

Time and Relative Dimension

/ Jane Stevenson

Police boxThe eagle-eyed amongst you will have noticed the Hub website reverting to last August – and in fact today, the Blog is stuck in August as well. We are in the process of restoring everything, but in the meantime please accept our apologies for any inconvenience. October 2006 will be resumed as soon as possible!

The Tardis here is in fact a restored police box near St Mungo Museum in Glasgow. Photo copyright © 2005 Archives Hub.

Blog for history

/ Amanda Hill

The History Matters campaign is organising a mass “One Day in History” blog in the UK on 17 October 2006. The entries submitted will be kept as part of the British Library’s web archive. It’s an internet-enabled version of the ideas behind the Mass-Observation movement.

From the site:

…a society out of touch with its past cannot have confidence in its future. History helps us to know where we come from and to explain the world as it is.

But one post in the site’s forum does point out that there is a distinct lack of mention of archives on the site, and apparent lack of involvement of archive-related organisations:

Sadly, it seems that they have been largely overlooked even by campaigners dedicated to promoting history and heritage.

Contributors’ Training Day

/ Amanda Hill

The Archives Hub will be holding a free training/information day in Manchester for archivists and information professionals who would like to contribute information about their archives to the service.

Date: Tuesday 5 December 2006
Location: Kilburn Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL. (maps)
Time: 11.00 – 16.30.
Lunch: a free lunch will be provided

The day will include:
A short introduction to the Archives Hub and to latest developments, including the new Spokes software.
A short introduction to the benefits of XML and to using EAD
Using the online template to create descriptions
Indexing for the Archives Hub
Hands on experience of creating records using the template

Please email Jane if you’d like to attend this event.