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Posts tagged 'arts'

Mon Mar

2013

You can take the girl out of the archives …

Posted by Emma Jay in Behind the scenes

My fellowship on the Clore leadership programme has entered a new phase. I’m taking six months out of my job at The National Archives to focus fully on the fellowship – I’ll not be back until the end of July.

There won’t be any time to twiddle my thumbs. I’ll be doing two work placements in different organisations, going on various training courses, researching and writing a paper on an aspect of leadership, attending a two-week residential course with the other Clore fellows (the sequel to our first Bore Place experience), and much else besides.

I’m immensely lucky to be able to make the most of the fellowship by spending time away from work. Not all the fellows are doing the same. Yet whereas the six-month hiatus felt like a long time when I thought about it in advance, it now seems to be speeding by at an alarming rate.

Tue Dec

2012

Trainee Tuesday: Make-do and Mend

Posted by Kate Sutton in Records and research

When thinking of war posters, the slogans ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ or ‘Make-do and Mend‘ might spring to mind, or perhaps the darker ‘Daddy, what did YOU do in the Great War?’ During the First and Second World Wars, posters were a vital method of communication; the government used them to increase morale, reduce panic and boost both agricultural and industrial output.

You could argue that they’re now embedded in the culture of the country. It’s highly likely every one of us will recognise Lord Kitchener’s ‘I Want You’ designed by Alfred Leete, in 1914. We have a collection of over 150 posters at Manchester Archives.

'Which is it be, Bonds or Bondage?' poster

Take this poster from the collection ‘Which is it to be; Bonds or Bondage?’ issued by the War Savings Office in Salford (date not known), which is unique to the area. Continue reading »

Mon Dec

2012

Archiving the arts – why and how?

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Behind the scenes, Managing information

Photograph of a theatrical mask on an archive box with the National Register of Archives web page behind

Archiving the arts

We’re embarking on an exciting new collection strategy this month, called Archiving the Arts. Our work on collection strategies generally is about identifying those areas of our society which need support to ensure that their archives survive and are accessible into the future. Those archives won’t usually come to The National Archives – very often they will be collected and held by a big range of archive services across the UK, keeping collections with relevant communities.

There can be many reasons why a collection strategy becomes essential – in the case of Archiving the Arts, it is a direct response to the needs of the arts community, who are increasingly interested in exploring a ‘second life’ for their archives and collections. They want to reuse and respond to evidence of their own artistic heritage. The arts is a complex area to archive, because arts organisations’ and artists’ heritage is more than their documents and records: to capture the essence of an art form for posterity, a variety of audio and visual media are often needed, and objects can be a crucial part of the heritage too. Though many arts archives already exist and can be very rich and exciting in content, there is a real danger that other aspects of the arts will not be accessible in the future. Continue reading »