January 2013 | The National Archives blog

Posts from January 2013

Wed Jan

2013

Testing, testing…

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Behind the scenes, Managing information

It is six months since I last blogged about my own major project, the new Accreditation Programme for Archive Services. Then, I was introducing the pilot we were about to launch and describing what we hoped would come out of that process. Today, I can reflect on what we have learned from the pilot.

I listed three main aims for the pilot:

Working out the kinks
Getting the guidance as good as it can be
Making sure that one size fits all

We recruited 20 different archive services from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to achieve this. They represent a huge range of service types, from national institutions – The National Archives itself led the way as a pilot – to very small, privately-run archives who nonetheless can provide a public service to interested parties.

image of an archive strongroom with fixed and mobile racking and volumes visible on the shelves

The strongroom at Exeter Cathedral Library and Archives, one of our pilot services

We worked with business archives, who often have serving internal users as a priority; archives in museums, where we needed to review how this new programme works with the existing scheme for museum accreditation; and we were very pleased to have a volunteer from the audio-visual archives sector who tested how the principles of archive service accreditation would work with their different media. So we gave ‘one size fits all’ a good workout.

What we heard back

Of the 20 services who began the pilot, all 20 were able to make a return, despite having to work to a tight timescale of just three months to help us launch the programme on schedule. That gives us real assurance that the process is not too burdensome. We recommend that once the scheme is live, archive services make it part of their long term planning and development, rather than setting an artificially short deadline like this.

Tue Jan

2013

Trainee Tuesday: Anyone for ice cream?

Posted by Amy Gee in Records and research

Ice cream may not be all that appealing at the moment, given the recent snowy weather. It’s a time when most of us just want to wrap up warm and eat comforting stews and soups. I, however, have spent a week rummaging through boxes of material from the Lyon’s collection at London Metropolitan Archive (LMA).

Result: Now ice-cream is all I can think about…

'Lyons Ice Cream Van' from the Lyons Maid Collection at LMA

Mon Jan

2013

Snow, Slush and…

Posted by Simon Demissie in Records and research

How many words do they say the Inuit have for ‘snow’? Four hundred? ¹ English seems to have far fewer: snow, disruption, carnage. For while safety concerns rightfully grounded aircraft (and even closed archives) last week, the disruption seemed significant. I wondered what kind of considerations lead to such decisions being made. Surely airlines wouldn’t cancel flights and train operators wouldn’t decide to run reduced services – and suffer decreased revenue as a consequence – without sound reasons? Surely every possible technological consideration would be made to keep services running?

'Casual earner but regular saver', Post Office savings campaign poster, 1963 (NSC 25/385)

The winter of 1962-63 (the so-called ‘Big Freeze’) was bitter, long, and exceptionally cold. Snow covered almost the entire country and there was snowfall each month between November and April. Disruption was significant, as schools struggled to open, roads were blocked, and sporting events cancelled (one football match was cancelled 33 times, and Barnsley, Yorkshire played only twice between late December and mid-March). ²

Through files held here at The National Archives we can see how closely government monitored technical operations at that time, and stipulated what constituted safe travel. A circular from the Ministry of Aviation sent in September 1962 (found in Board of Trade records – BT 248/355) demonstrates this, as government scientists specified the acceptable levels of slush/water for take-off, as research showed they negatively affect performance and damage aircraft.

Notes:

1. As with all delightfully simplistic and faintly derogatory claims, this is indeed a myth: www.uaf.edu/anlc/snow/. ^
2. www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jan/10/fa-cup-1963-freeze-abandonments. ^

Sun Jan

2013

Ripablik blong Vanuatu

Posted by Jenni Orme in Records and research

In 1960, the Lopevi volcano erupted in Vanuatu (then the New Hebrides), a small group of islands in the South Pacific.

During the eruption, photographs were taken of the steam rising from the sea where the lava spilled in:

'Steam caused by lava flowing into the sea at Lopevi during the eruption of July 1960' - Reece Discombe. CO 1069/671

Sat Jan

2013

Alexander Sutherland – a colonial intellectual

Posted by Daniel Gilfoyle in Records and research

Alexander Sutherland, Australian polymath

Alexander Sutherland (reference CO 1069/593)

Alexander Sutherland (born 1852) was the son of Scottish immigrants to Australia who settled in Sydney during 1864. Sutherland trained as a schoolteacher and had successful careers in teaching and journalism, during which he was particularly associated with Melbourne, where his family had moved.

In spite of his busy working career and relatively early death in 1902, Sutherland emerged as a colonial intellectual and important local cultural figure. He co-wrote a standard school text, A History of Australia, which was published in 1877 and retained currency into the 20th century. Apart from producing other historical and biographical material, Sutherland published in 1898 The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct. Here he sought to associate the development of human morality with Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Fri Jan

2013

Six degrees of Kevin Bacon and information management

Posted by Rob Johnson in Managing information

Information management is all about understanding connections.

Web browsing, search engines, metadata, hyperlinks, embedded content, attachments, tag clouds – data rarely exists in isolation anymore, and it’s the job of information managers to ensure that during times of change information assets retain their context and accessibility.

Bacon to information management in six steps (ref. CO 1069/295/88)

Which brings me to the ‘six degrees of separation’: the concept that you are only ever six steps of ‘connection’ from anyone else in the world. A recent TV advert plays on this idea by linking their 4G mobile phone company to actor Kevin Bacon in under 30 seconds, using a series of tenuous connections.

This, of course, gave me an idea… if Kevin Bacon could link himself to mobile phones, can I link him to good digital information management in six steps? And what ‘cautionary tales’ can I bring in along the way?

Let’s find out:

Continue reading »

Fri Jan

2013

In Flickr’s page, let every stage, Advance Australia Fair…

Posted by Jenni Orme in Records and research

'Tekasua, Rennell Island, British Solomons', 1935, CO 1069/660

The characters and landscapes of Australasia are the subjects of the latest ‘Through a lens’ online release today – timed perfectly for Australia Day tomorrow.

From Darwin to Tasmania, Perth to Brisbane, the people, places and projects of Australia from the 1860s to 1960s are represented in the collection, alongside smaller collections showing New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu and other Pacific islands.

The photographs are part of the Colonial Office collection that we have been releasing online through Flickr since 2011. In September last year I wrote about the release of the Asia collection, and the diversity shown in the Australasia photographs is just as apparent. There are, for example, beautiful images of landscapes, of the construction of Sydney Harbour Bridge, and even the All Blacks team from 1953-54. Continue reading »

Thu Jan

2013

In the national interest…The Military Service Act, January 1916

Posted by David Langrish in Records and research

I am going to start this blog post by asking a few questions. If faced with compulsory military service today, what would be the impact on our own individual lives? Would we need time to settle our domestic responsibilities before being able to serve? Would it be in the national interest for us to stay in the employment, training or social role which we currently hold? And what personnel would businesses and industries require to ensure the continued support to our local communities, especially the young and elderly?

Fortunately for us in Britain today these questions are purely hypothetical but 97 years ago (give or take a few days), on 27 January 1916, the British Government passed the first Military Service Act, meaning compulsory military service for every British male aged between 18 and 41 who was either unmarried or a widower without children. Exemption could be granted from this conscription into the military forces with a Tribunal system established to hear applications and appeals at local district or borough level, County appeal and a final Central appeal level in London.

Wed Jan

2013

It’s not the document, it’s the information

Posted by Audrey Collins in Records and research

Researchers spend a lot of time looking for documents. In fact, they may spend more time on this than on reading what they have found. It took me more than 20 years to find my great-grandfather’s birth certificate, but only a few minutes to read it once I had tracked it down. Not that I spent every waking minute of those 20 years in hot pursuit, but I did devote many hours to the problem during that time. It took quite a bit of creative thinking and the use of some less than obvious record sources to get there, but I made it in the end, and felt very pleased with myself as a result. The fact that the answer to one question presented me with another bigger, and so far unresolved, problem is neither here nor there.

Many kinds of research lend themselves to the use of standard sources which provide the essential information in most cases. Genealogists in particular use various birth, marriage and death records, census returns and probate records to work their way back through the generations. This works fairly well much of the time, but when you can’t find the marriage or the census entry you want then you become stuck. But when the direct approach doesn’t work there may be another way. Think about it; when you say that you need to find a death certificate, or a census entry, what you really mean is that you need the information that you would expect to find in that document, rather than the piece of paper itself. So if your search is unsuccessful, think about the specific information you want, and then consider whether you might be able to find it from another source. Sometimes you will find that there is more information in the alternative source than you would have found in your first choice.

PCC Will of Colin McKenzie 1808, en route from Jamaica to England

Mon Jan

2013

Past and future events

Posted by Ruth Roberts in Records and research

Some of you have probably attended one or more of our events and, for those that live further afield, you’ve probably heard some of our podcasts. Whether it be the regular Thursday afternoon talks, conferences, seminars, workshops or training – there’s always plenty going on.

Last week we hosted a particularly fascinating and well attended event called Mining the Archives: A beginners guide to using historical records. This was the launch of a programme of events happening throughout 2013. We have invited writers of both historical fiction and non-fiction books to give a talk about how they have used the archives to research their publications. Each month of 2013 we’ll feature a different writer. Read more about next month’s author.

Speaker Mark Dunton

Authors