Hello,
On this grey, rainy and also surprisingly warm for November day. I thought how often I need notepaper. The V&A must have known as they have come up with an fun and fruity way to write notes. The pear memo pad!
No food near the archives please!
Well, who would have thought that, huh? Certainly not me! Over the past year we have covered topics from hand creams to Halloween (which is coming up again pretty soon). Art work to conservation work, diaries and cake! I did get a little techie from time to time with new tools such as ICA Atom and a new website (do check it out!!) . Also pleas for contacts in the conservation world and also exciting projects. I hope the next coming year and the installation of twitter will see the blog grow.
I hope you have enjoyed reading it all and do stay put for more posts! Also see below for my musings on archives.
Thank you for following :)
AG
This post is in dedication to the Through the Door project. Where poets will take up residence in an archive to write about the collections and general aura of the archive. It has recently been advertised on the listserv so for archives to join the scheme and have a poet visit them in 2011. I am no real poet but by some amazing good luck I am an archivist .
I also thought it was high time to actually did some ‘proper’ musings on the world that we (archivists) inhabit daily. Whether the Search Room or the back office cataloguing.
So here are my attempts to be both poet and archivist.
Quiet but busy industry.
Pools of knowledge,
Islands of thought.
The researcher wades through records
Inspecting every line, waiting for a catch.
The archivist surveying the archipelago
Blossoming throughout the day.
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The archivist tries to leaves no trace.
The model is revived.
A tree grows from the seeds left discarded in attics and basements
Ghost germination.
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A statement, a relevance, the way between worlds. Everyman’s yesterday, today and tomorrow. This is your archives.
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So there you have it. Ramblings of an archivist! Maybe I should stick to the day job! I am sure many of you could do much better than this, I found myself being drawn to nature throughout. I have no real idea why, but it felt right as I was scribbling it all down late last night. Why does the urge to write come when you really should be sleeping?!
Anyway I hope you enjoyed and feel what we do isn’t as humdrum as we think it is on a gloomy winters day.
This week I visited Lord Leighton's House in Kensington. It was rather a gloomy and chilly day, strange for August! My first impressions were that I loved the gold details and the rich colours within the house. The Arab Hall was stunning and I felt myself transported to some far flung courtyard somewhere in the Middle East. However, I only truly felt 'at home' upstairs on the first floor in which the rooms were bathed in light (for mainly having a tinted glass roof). I agreed with my friend that this it seemed was where Lord Leighton truly lived and worked and not on the ground, which was maily for show.
I had picked up the booklet about the house and Lord Leighton but hadn't read it till after I had left. I found a passage which to an archivist saddened me a little.
' Leighton left no diaries and his letters are telling in their lack of reference to his personal circumstances. No definite primary evidence has yet to come to light that effectively dispels the secrecy that Leighton built up around himself' Leighton House Museum
He was, it seems a very private man. There may have been no mystery at all about his sexuality or whether he had a child by one of his models. These suppositions were damning for the period if they were found to be true. Also I can sympathise with someone who feels their lives are not for the show of others. But now we will never know. In an age much more free to talk and share, maybe it would have been more of a burden for him in this period than the one he lived and worked.
A little more cross over between Archives and Artists has been shown by one the Turner Prize nominee for 2010.
‘The Otolith Group "investigate overlooked histories" using archival material.’ BBC journalists It states on their (Otolith Group) website that they use media archive amongst other things and that their work explores, sound, moving image and text. They have been curators to several major exhibitions the latest being work of Harun Farocki in London in 2009
I wonder if any archive or the archive profession taking any notice of this work?? Or noting it briefly as additional information in their collections, if these artists happen to stray onto something within a collection? Obviously it leans more to the museum side of events but surely has some relevance to us to as archivists??
It is good to see archives being prominently displayed in the public eye.
For more information please go to The Otolith Group
Hey,
Don’t be alarmed and think you are on the wrong page, it is still Musings Of Archive Girl just slightly updated. I hope you all like the new format, I felt it was time for something a little different and with more archive themed things added. It is amazing what a walk can do to sort out blog that has been troubling you, maybe I should have started a new one but I didn’t feel ready for that and I am glad I didn’t because I have so much to do with this one now. I feel much more inspired! It is like I have just wrapped up my blog in a four flap folder and given it a lot more love and attention than it has had in several months.
AG
A tall handsome man between the age of … On a serious note see below!
A paper conservator or a conservator that works with photographs (non digital) to do some much needed repair work. I don’t really know where to start looking, I am thinking that the British Library should have some point of contact. The NRA list isn’t often used for conservators to talk about issues, only really archivists or other heritage sector members to post vacancies. Maybe I am being a little dense but all suggestions much appreciated!
AG
Being freelance I have been wondering how to overcome not being able to afford and use Calm to do archival cataloguing. Reading the recent posts on ICA Atom on the NRA list I thought it would be a good idea to have a further exploration of the actual product.
I have been specifically looking at the installation guide of ICA Atom as a virtual appliance as it would only exist on my old faithful computer. It started out alright and I was feeling confident that I would be able to understand the process and the screen shots are a god send. But then things started to become a bit trickier, in terms of understanding the instructions. If you look at the page they are simple enough it is go here and do that but i feel that is only half of the problem solved. Now it may be that I am having a particularly bad day as usually I enjoyed installing new gadgets. Although I do now have more sympathy towards those people who set up Calm and other cataloguing systems on their own. How do they do it?!! I’m sure with a little more time and patience it will go in and I will be up and running in no time.
AG
That the criminal record of Ronnie Kray has been found at Durham Police Station whilst moving premises. This record dates back to the 1950’s and it notes his character, peculiar facial features and his run ins with the police from a stolen car up to the murder charge.
The article later states that this record may be given to a museum. Sometimes records show a stark and brutal vision of what our world is like.
Dear all,
Sorry it has been so quiet. I have been on the look out for new part time jobs and been furiously writing out applications. More (interesting) posts coming soon!
AG
Just watched a very interesting programme on BBC4 hosted by Richard E Grant about people that write diaries. He chose 5 people and their own diaries that had been published. Some of these people were known to me, others were not. Each made me think how life changing these books can be whether for good or ill.
As an archivist, diaries do form a very interesting part to personal collections. Like it was said in the programme you are there with the person on that very day that they have written. It can at times feel like a voyeur into a life and thoughts that are far too personal for someone unconnected to be reading. Somehow you have to make sense of this and return it to some sort of order within the collection.
I thought to myself I am not a diarist but then what have I been doing sporadically for the last couple of months? Only with this it can have an immediate audience and reaction.
There are some points in the year where archiving comes into its own. As well as being a time of feasting, giving and general happiness, December is also a time to reflect, remember and record before starting afresh in January. December is usually the time for archives across the UK to close and carry out stock taking duties for a week or usually two! An important activity which can be met by dissatisfaction by users but if this did not take place then I feel the dissatisfaction would grow a hundredfold!
More generally we are bombarded with programmes on the television and radio listing the best 50 pop songs, adverts and more poignant items about news stories and events that shaped that particular year. This time we see it not only of this year 2009 but of the first decade of the 00’s and what we have achieved or not as the case may be. Where has the last 9 years gone?
Thank you for reading my blog over the last couple of months it has been a real joy to find out other people like and are interested in my little snippets on archives and life.
AG
has just got a bit longer! These results are the culmination of taking the masters course in Archives and Records Management at UCL. They (staff at UCL I suspect) were due to meet up on Wednesday 11th but because of unforeseen circumstances this has now been pushed back till 7th of December. Many people are rather annoyed at this and for good reason. I don’t think that I can feel annoyed yet. I am still on ‘the praying I pass’ phase! I don’t think I am alone in that feeling either thank goodness! I hope this extra wait doesn’t play on the minds of people that I know, as it does feel like you are left in limbo.
Every year there seems to be stories about exam boards from Junior School all the way up to University age. These being good and bad experiences. Does anyone have results stories they would like to share? Or any ways to cope with the waiting and fretting?!
AG
Something I found while surfing the Internet The Serge Prokofiev Archives and this great little paragraph.
To most people, archives conjure up a picture of dark rooms encumbered with archival boxes and rows of heavily-loaded, dusty shelves; silent places of musty scent, occasionally disturbed by the shuffling sound of quiet archivists whose life seems to revolve around descriptive catalogues and index cards; in a word, archives have been perceived for a long time as the undisturbed shrine of the past. This quaint cliché fades away as soon as one enters the Prokofiev Archive offices, two busy rooms in the Information Services Building at Goldsmiths College, or visits its collection kept in the Library's Special Collections.
It is one of my bug bears that this quaint little cliché still exists but I am glad to see someone a wonderful archive tackling it head on. Yes we still need quiet for readers and we need to protect the past but we don’t need the wider public to go around thinking we work in dusty archives (they should, if been properly managed, be wonderful and clean) or that we are a shuffling and mumbling profession!
I suppose we all are labelled in some way but lets hope by more interaction with the wider public this becomes something of a distant memory by all than a sneaky suspicion that is what we are like.
When readership is going down and everyone wants a newspapers for free. Also the continued debates this year about the censorship/ freedom of speech. Isn’t it about time we looked again into why we have newspapers?
The Manchester Guardian was founded by John Edward Taylor in 1821, and was first published on May 5 of that year. The paper's intention was the promotion of the liberal interest in the aftermath of the Peterloo Massacre and the growing campaign to repeal the Corn Laws that flourished in Manchester during this period. The Guardian was published weekly until 1836 when it was published on Wednesday and Saturday becoming a daily in 1855, when the abolition of Stamp Duty on newspapers permitted a subsequent reduction in cover price (to 2d) allowed the paper to be published daily.
The Guardian achieved national and international recognition under the editorship of CP Scott, who held the post for 57 years from 1872. Scott bought the paper in 1907 following the death of Taylor's son, and pledged that the principles laid down in the founder's will would be upheld by retaining the independence of the newspaper. CP Scott outlined those principals in a much-quoted article written to celebrate the centenary of the paper: "Comment is free, but facts are sacred... The voice of opponents no less than that of friends has a right to be heard."
The above was an excerpt from the Guardian webpage here is a link to read it in full History of the Guardian
The Guardians News & Media Archive: An Overview
The Guardian News & Media Archive makes sure that these principles remain with the newspaper. The archive promotes the histories and values of the Guardian and the Observer newspapers by collecting and making accessible material that provides an accurate and comprehensive history of the papers.
The archive holds official records of the Guardian and the Observer and also seeks to acquire material from people who have been associated with the papers. As well as corporate records the archive therefore holds correspondence, diaries, notebooks, original cartoons and photographs belonging to staff of the papers. It does not however hold the newspapers themselves.
An oral history project has been undertaken to record the memories of people who have worked for either the Guardian or the Observer over the last 70 years.
Again this is another excerpt. Please do visit the Archive Catalogue as it has very many interesting records. Plus a digital archive too (there is a fee to have an entry pass).
I felt this needed to be raised as many people do not realise what brilliant resources we have at our fingertips!
