Discovering UK Archives (#ukad and other things)

A round-up and some brief reflections on a number of different events and presentations I’ve attended recently: Many of this term’s Archives and Society seminars at the Institute of Historical Research have been been on particularly pertinent subjects for me, and rather gratifyingly have attracted bumper audiences (we ran out of chairs at the last [...]

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Digital Delights for October

A round-up of a few pieces of digital goodness to cheer up a damp and dark start to October: What looks like a bumper new issue of the Journal of the Society of Archivists (shouldn’t it be getting a new name?) is published today.  It has an oral history theme, but actually it was the [...]

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Jenkinsonian User Participation?

“I hope there always will be, room for the Amateur, and in large numbers….that our School will always find a place for the part-time student – the Local Official or other enthusiast whose Archives do not need and cannot claim the whole of his time; but who can find enough to undertake their listing or [...]

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Churchill Medallion Ceremony, 21st May 2010

Under the avuncular eye of fellow Pembrokian William Pitt the Younger, I was presented with my Churchill Fellowship Medallion by Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall at the City of London Guildhall on Friday 21st May.  Unfortunately, I can’t blog the picture of me receiving my medallion; partly because its locked down by some [...]

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The Digital Economy Bill and User Generated Content

Today I am tired.  Last night I watched live proceedings from the House of Commons with increasing disillusionment, as the Digital Economy Bill was ‘washed-up’ with unseemly haste before the dissolution of parliament.  There are many reasons – political, ideological, personal, professional – why I am so dismayed by the passing of this deeply flawed [...]

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Mashed-up Archivist: Musings on Rewired Culture #rsrc

On 27th March (yes, I know, Easter got in the way) I attended the Rewired Culture unconference at The Guardian in London.  I’d not been to an unconference before, let alone one associated with a hackday, but I’d followed similar intiatives, such as the THATCamp series at a distance via twitter and blog postings.  So [...]

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UK Copyright Amendments Consultation

A quick reminder to UK archivists that the consultation on amendments to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act draws to a close this coming Wednesday, 31st March 2010.  The proposals include some important provisions for digital preservation – including allowing the making of multiple copies of copyright works for preservation purposes – and extensions to [...]

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Aren’t we a friendly, sociable bunch! Reflections on #DR10

On Monday I attended an event at the British Library – Digital Researcher: Managing your networks and building your profile.  I hadn’t intended to blog about it here, since the subject seemed somewhat tangential to the focus of this blog (or at least to the focus of this blog hitherto – on which more, possibly, [...]

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Gloucestershire Archives – Digital Curation from Ingest to Trusted Storage

Last Thursday I was delighted to attend the culminating workshop for the Society of Archivists‘ (SoA) funded digital curation project at Gloucestershire Archives.  As Viv Cothey, the developer employed by Gloucestershire Archives, has noted, “Local authority archivists may well be fully aware of the very many exhortations to do digital curation and to get involved [...]

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Practical Digital Preservation for Small Archives – Link Roundup

Chris Prom‘s talk on his Fulbright research ‘Tools for implementing Digital Preservation Standards’ for the ‘under resourced’ archive at the Society of Archivists’ Data Standards Group meeting (presentation slides should be available here shortly) yesterday has finally spurred me into posting a roundup of projects which I’ve encountered over the last couple of months, which [...]

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