I attended the Society of Archivists’ conference last week where there was an interesting keynote by Brien Brothman of the Rhode Island State Archives. Brien started by acknowledging that in today’s society we think in business terms and archives often become more like products. We need to seek to maximise our financial opportunities and justify what we do economically. The question of how much archives should be funded, their value compared to other commodities and services, is a difficult one, but Brien wanted to leave that to one side and think about a situation where we exclude the economic and business model. He wanted to think about archives as beyond value, and explore the notion of an archive as a gift.

Brien looked at the concept of temporality in relation to archives. He referred to the Irish poet Louis McNeice as someone concerned with questions of time (I didn’t have time to get the quotes from his poems down though!). Brien’s argument was that temporality is intertwined with acts of giving and receiving – the past and the future. Whilst we assign a single date to a document, the reality is that the temporal identity of that document is more complex. It has an identity over time. Archives in a sense are located in the past and the future, and archivists are in a position to make a gift of archives to the future. Maybe this is the perfect gift, beyond economics?

Gift giving may be seen as an exchange, a transaction, but a one-way gift expects no return. Yet is there always an element of future obligation? Jacques Derrida, the philosopher, felt that gifts give or buy us time – we receive a return on them after a delay. He argued that a pure gift is impossible as it would only be possible if the gift giver could forget that they had been in the act of giving.

Archivists in a way form alliances with the dead and the not yet living, and so maybe archivists can make the perfect gift because there can be no expectation of return, of being rewarded. The question is, does the recipient have to be alive for the gift to truly be a gift?

Brien made the point that expenditure on things that we don’t truly need may be what fuels progress. Things that are beyond the expectation of return and utility. Archivists add value to the archives that they look after, so Brien concluded that they are like gift wrappers.

If there is no such thing as the perfect gift then maybe the archive does represent a belief in principles, the importance of community, of sacrifice and giving where you are not certain of the return.

I am not certain where this talk left me. I liked the notion of the gift, but it is maybe rather more fanciful than faithful to reality. Still, it is good to think about the importance of the role of an archivist from a more philosophical perspective like this – beyond the day to day realities of funding.

A second instalment from the ICA Conference in Dundee, July 2007.

Maygene Daniels from the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC talked about archives and users in the internet age. She made the point that simply moving finding aids from paper to the internet may not be the most effective option, and gave some examples of this. She then proceeded to compare search strategies using the website of the National Union Catalogue of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) and the Google search engine. One of the points that she made was how the results were ordered in a fairly meaningless way in the NUCMC system, whereas Google ranks in order of relevance, and seems to do this pretty effectively. She pointed out that barriers of language are lowered by Google, which provides options to search in different languages and also brings back results written in different languages. However, broader subject areas are maybe more difficult to search for using search engines like this and we also have no guarantee that these sorts of search engines will remain open and unbiased.

Maygene went on to talk about standards, referring to MARC AMC (Archival and Manuscripts Control), which was introduced in 1994 as the first attempt at standardisation and following established forms. The ISAD(G) then came along and seemed to make a great deal of sense, but she felt that with more open models of searching things have changed and she put forward the controversial opinion that ISAD(G) may no longer be relevant. She posed the question of whether the new standard for archive creators (ISIAH) is really needed at all. She wondered whether rules are sometimes created where none are really necessary and suggested that often using HTML can achieve the same results.

I pretty much entirely disagree with this opinion as I think that we need to make data open, accessible, flexible and easy to import and export into different applications. This is something that we can achieve fairly well using XML. Whilst it is not perfect, it enables us to store finding aids as text only documents, which is important for their long-term preservation, and it means that we can create XHTML for the Web, PDF for print, and use the data in all manner of ways. I certainly would agree with her that we are still learning about the online environment, which is still in its infancy, and about how best to present data.

Turning to the media, Nick Barratt, the historian of ‘Who Do You Think You Are?‘ fame, gave a most stimulating talk on archives and the media. From his experienced viewpoint he talked about how the media treat research and archives. The BBC have tended not to appreciate that research should actually involve trips to archive repositories. When a programme is first conceived, a pitch is made and a short and glossy pilot is usually made. At this point the minimum resources are used, the budget is often very tight and no thought is given to how archive resources might be employed. There is generally a great ignorance of what archives are and TV producers tend to want to dress the set with pretty, colourful documents and ensure that PCs are hidden from view so that they can perpetuate the romantic antiquated view of archives. They do not have an appreciation of the ways that archives inter-relate and the importance of context. They also give the impression that genealogical and other archives-based research is easy and the enquirer will get quick results. Nick stressed that it is up to us as archivists to stand up to this type of approach and be more determined to present archives in ways that we see as positive and accurate. One of the points Nick made is something that I hadn’t thought about before: the way that online searching and presenting everything as seamlessly as possible leads to the danger of research skills being eroded. On the positive side, he felt that broadcasters are improving their understanding of archives and he gave a recent example of a TV programme where research into the history of a house started with a tithe map, moved to the census returns and on to look at wills, which gives a more realistic impression of how archives are interrelated.

I enjoyed the conference and wished that I could have stayed for the whole event, especially the grand evening in Fingask castle. Still, I talked to some interesting folk and took away some good ideas, and also a very useful ‘rain mate’ (see pic), which is particularly useful in a country where it rains frequently (and I live in Manchester, so useful at home as well)!

I attended the ICA/SUV Conference in Dundee this week – that is, the International Council on Archives Section on University and Research Institution Archives. This is my first report of the event.

The conference began with an entertaining keynote by George McKenzie of the National Archives of Scotland, who opened by explaining, for the benefit of those from other countries, the rather unusual set up within the UK. We have a British Olympic team but if you went into a local pub in Dundee and asked how the British football team were doing you would not get a very good reception! So although we are all British, in many ways we have separate identities and histories. There are important legal and administrative differences between England and Scotland that impact on archives management. George talked about the National Register of Saisines, which is a Scottish property register, and how it has gone through six different formats, from handwritten to xerox and through to digital, whilst retaining the same content. The changes have all been in reaction to user demand, so the motivations for the move from handwritten to typescript were really the same as the move from Xerox to digital: it is always about satisfying user demand for access.

I found George’s description of the ScotlandsPeople service interesting, because as well as an online source the initiative has included the creation of a centre in Edinburgh, partly with a view to ‘genealogical tourism’. Studies show that 5% of visitors to Scotland are interested in family history, and they are often the visitors who stay longest and spend the most. This does seem to contrast with the approach in England, as the Family Records Centre in Islington, which is fairly central London, is closing down and operations are moving to The National Archives in Kew, which is a little way out of London (and on the infamous District Line!). A particular remark that drew my attention was his assertion that maybe it is no bad thing to compete with the private sector in the field of family history, as it means that the public sector has to be focussed and ensure that it delivers a good service that can compete effectively with others.

George’s talk ended with reference to the Declaration of Arbroath of 1320, which was a formal Declaration of Independence and is one of the most famous records in the National Archives. He also showed us an image of a most important document with the first known reference to the distilling of whisky!

Megan Sniffin-Marinoff of Harvard University also gave a keynote which looked at emerging trends within the higher education sector. Whilst acknowledging the great diversity of university archives and contexts across the globe, she did draw out some common themes that are likely to affect many of us. Amongst other things, she referred to life-long learning and the increase in students outside of the typical 18-21 year old range. She looked at some of the reasons for this change, such as the need for people to re-skill in a fast changing world and the increasing demands of employers. She also raised issues surrounding distance learning and new innovations in teaching and proposed that we might have to think differently about our outreach activities as a result of this changing student body.

There were a number of enlightening talks from archivists of different countries, and I thought the contrast between Latvia and Lebanon was particularly striking, because they are both very different from the typical UK experience. Gatis Karlsons explained to us that the University of Latvia has 28,000 students (the country has a population of 2 million). The way that the archives are managed is influenced by Soviet theories, because of the occupation of Latvia until the declaration of independence in 1991. One obvious difference to me (which caused some confusion until I realised) was that the term ‘archives’ is used to refer to records in their current, semi-current and non-current states. Whilst Gatis talked about the ‘archive’ where he works, the records for long-term preservation are in fact transferred to the state archives, so in UK terms his place of work would probably be seen more as a records centre and a place practising records management. There seemed to be a very integrated and rigorous approach to record keeping, with boards of experts to appraise the records, consisting of archivists, academics, legal and financial representatives. The archives have very few visitors, only about 10 per year, although the records are doubtless a rich source, so this does seem to be a shame. They therefore have no purpose-built search room.

Unfortunately Samar Mikati Kaissi from the American University of Beirut in Lebanon was not able to attend the conference and so Susanne Belovari from Tufts University in Boston gave her presentation. It was a sobering experience to hear about a situation where war has played such an all-pervasive part in the functioning of the archive. In fact, when Susanne originally asked Samar about the effects of war Samar said that they were not that significant, but as they talked what emerged was that the effects are ever-present and society has simply adjusted to them. The archive has managed to continue to function and is the only academic institution with a fully fledged archive programme and it has carried out some digitisation projects, but the numbers of researchers has been affected by the war and political upheavals (it is generally around 1,000 per year). Also, the war has affected staff morale and staff attendance, as people are often more preoccupied with the welfare of their families. There is some national archives legislation, which would not apply to the University as it is a private institution, but Samar said that no-one knows exactly what it is anyway! Rather ironically, the archive has no disaster preparedness plan, but when the archive was set up the decision was taken to put it in the basement because this offered t
he best protection from bombings. There are no archival suppliers in Lebanon so they are dependent on getting boxes, folders, etc, from outside. They also suffer from an intermittent electricity supply, which compounds the inadequate environmental situation.

Image from Flickr (Creative Commons licence)

I attended the Liverpool University Centre for Archive Studies (LUCAS) 60th anniversary event recently. There was one attendee from the first year of the course, in 1947, and she cut the anniversary cake with one of the recent graduates, which was a nice touch. The weekend was very successful, despite the fact that it rained almost constantly. One of the excursions was to see the Williamson Tunnels. These are the curious creation of an eccentric Victorian gentlelman, a labyrinth of tunnels and caverns constructed in the early 1800’s. Joseph Williamson, a rich merchant, seems to have decided to offer work to local unemployed men to build these tunnels from altruistic motives. But the real reason for building them is not clear, and there is no documentation to tell us.

A group of us archivists were taken round by one of the Friends of the Tunnels. He talked about the bricks used for the tunnels and we suggested that the source of the bricks could be traced – being archivists we were inevitably thinking about possible sources to help put together the history of the tunnels. However, I got the feeling that our guide preferred the sense of mystery to remain, and didn’t really want to know about documentary sources!

You can find out more at http://www.williamsontunnels.com/

We also enjoyed a fascinating talk by Professor John Belchem on the history of Liverpool. He has recently edited a book, Liverpool 800: Culture, Character and History, which charts the history of the city from 1207. One of the points he made that struck me was how Liverpool had built its reputation as a city of commerce and tended to look out to the sea, the source of wealth and status, rather than looking inward to England, which has in some ways been responsible for the sense that Liverpool is rather isolated. When the fortunes of the city started changing for the worse, there was a reluctance within Liverpool to label it as an industrial city, because it still saw itself as a city of commerce and empire, and this meant that when the government was giving out aid to struggling industrial centres, Liverpool was largely by-passed.

As well as excursions and talks, we also took advantage of a table tennis room (croquet was out unfortunately). Margaret Procter, LUCAS Course Director, and I, were the table tennis champions, hence the rather odd picture of us with some garishly coloured ping pong balls!

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