Results for 'future'

Wed Aug

2012

Focus on the Paralympics… Thanks for the warm up!

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Records and research

An Olympic spectator covered in a GB flag over her head

Undercover TeamGB supporter

My colleague Cathy Williams is making another of her guest posts about records relating to London 2012.

Cathy writes: I’m hoping that Channel 4 won’t mind my borrowing one of their Paralympic slogans as they build on the enthusiasm of the UK public for the Olympics and stir up as much passion and support for ParalympicsGB athletes as for our TeamGB competitors already at home, polishing their medals or wondering where it all went wrong!

By most accounts it all went very well and, having been lucky enough to enjoy events at several different venues, I would certainly agree: there were no hold ups at security and even arriving at and leaving the Olympic Stadium with 80,000 other spectators didn’t mean horrendous delays. Ok, so after the rehearsal for the Opening Ceremony we were funnelled uncomfortably down one of Westfield’s shopping streets for over an hour … but when the Games actually began, that didn’t seem to be a problem.

So I have loads of personal memories in my head and on my camera, loads of memorabilia and mementos including tickets and flags and sundry other branded items which I need to sort through and organise and store, if I want to keep them. But multiply those memories by the millions of global spectators and you’ve an unimaginable mountain of stuff all somehow contributing to the history of London 2012.

And that’s before you consider the official histories of agencies involved in preparing and delivering both the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the Cultural Olympiad.

Basically, we’re looking at millions and millions of records of all types – but where are they all going? That’s exactly why we began The Record over four-and-a-half years ago … and why we continue to work to ensure that those records are not lost.

Tue Sep

2012

User participation: volunteering at The National Archives

Posted by Jeff James in Behind the scenes

Like many others I have spent the summer in awe at the courage and dedication of the Olympians and Paralympians, sharing in the national pride of the incredible achievements of TeamGB and ParalympicsGB. I’ve been equally inspired by the outpouring of support and appreciation for the volunteers who helped make both Games such a great success.

Africa Through a Lens (Reference: CO 1069/135)

The National Archives has a very long and successful relationship with volunteers, stretching back over 20 years. Traditionally, volunteering has taken place at Kew, making an invaluable contribution to our work, helping to catalogue and conserve thousands of records. In more recent times our focus has broadened beyond paper and parchment to online records. In 2010-11 we delivered over 120 million records to over 20 million online users, and for every document delivered in our reading rooms at Kew, 200 were delivered online. This wider notion of participation, combining traditional volunteering activities with virtual collaboration, is at the very heart of our newly published approach to engaging with volunteers.

A long and successful relationship

In 2011, volunteers from the Friends of The National Archives completed a lengthy cataloguing project of record series WO 97, WO 119 and WO 121, resulting in the addition of more than 20,000 soldiers’ records to the catalogue. We’ve worked with volunteers from the National Association of Decorative & Fine Arts Societies (NADFAS) since 1997. NADFAS volunteers have contributed around 2,500 volunteer hours per year to conservation activities such as ordering, numbering, dry surface cleaning, encapsulating and re-housing. 200 project volunteers, from across the country, came together to describe poor law records in our record series MH 12, adding 4.6 million words to our catalogue.

Continue reading »

Fri Feb

2013

Documenting LGBT history across the UK

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Behind the scenes, Records and research

Collecting, reflecting

a dense colourful picture of many badges bearing varied gay rights slogans

Just a selection of the campaign badges held by the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive (with thanks to Bishopsgate Institute for the image)

We’re now well into LGBT history month, celebrated by The National Archives and many other heritage organisations and communities across the country. It seems like a good moment to reflect on how LGBT archives appear in the historical record, without which LGBT history month couldn’t exist.

Older records can be really problematic for studying LGBT history, and seem almost to conspire to hide histories rather than to reveal. Where a community was of necessity trying to avoid the eye of the authorities, there’s relatively little in the official records, and when it does exist, it’s often a negative portrayal. Jenni’s blog earlier in the month outlined what The National Archives is trying to do about that, revealing hidden histories and bringing together information on LGBT records so that it is easier to find. Continue reading »

Tue May

2013

Sweet, sweet music

Posted by Emma Jay in Behind the scenes

I’m in Gateshead and I can hear music. No, I haven’t gone doolally, though you might well wonder. The second work placement I’ve chosen to do for the Clore leadership programme is at Sage Gateshead (which was previously known as ‘The Sage Gateshead’, but is currently undergoing a brand refresh).

All kinds of music are happening here: classical, jazz, folk, rock, world, big band, soul and blues, to name a few. A highlight for me was Fiddlers Two By Two, one of the concerts in the recent Fiddles on Fire festival. A brilliant and spontaneous medley of music led by Kathryn Tickell, it featured surprising combinations of artists from different countries and traditions.

Sage Gateshead © Mark Savage

The best workplace perk I’ve ever come across is the ability to pop into the public viewing gallery in Hall One (the bigger of the two concert halls) and listen to rehearsals. And it’s been a delight to catch Northern Sinfonia as often as I have, whether in rehearsal or in performance.

It seems apt that I’m at a musical venue, because in many ways the Clore programme is about listening. I’ve had the privilege of sitting in on a huge variety of meetings and conversations, both here and on my previous placement at Battersea Arts Centre, and that has given me a sense of what the two organisations are doing, and how and why they are doing it.

I’m learning about things I knew little or nothing about before, from artistic programming to ticket sales, and from London’s fringe theatre scene to the cultural infrastructure of the north east of England. In both places I’ve encountered the excitement and the risks of putting on a live show – something I’ve not been exposed to at all in my job at The National Archives, of course.

Listening plays a large part in a course I’m taking (along with several other Clore fellows) called Relational Dynamics. The course covers elements of leadership and personal awareness, but is mainly focused on coaching, and provides the opportunity of gaining a coaching accreditation. The concept of ‘active listening’ is key to the coaching experience: it’s a way of enabling the coachee (horrible word!) to explore his or her thoughts, articulate positive goals and make decisions.

Tue Apr

2013

Trainee Tuesday: the best of Borthwick

Posted by Amy Coaker in Behind the scenes, Records and research

Original artwork for a poster advertising Rowntree’s Fruit Gums (1954)

2013 is an important year for my host organisation, the Borthwick Institute for Archives, based at the University of York. The year simultaneously marks both the 50th anniversary of the University’s establishment, and the 60th anniversary of the Borthwick’s foundation. The latter became a part of the former in 1963, on occasion of the university’s opening.

Formed in 1953 as a repository and public research centre for the vast ecclesiastical archive of the Archdiocese of York, the Borthwick has since acquired material of increasingly broad and diverse origins. No longer renowned solely for its extensive church records, dating as far back as the 13th century, the Borthwick now boasts holdings that range from the archive of internationally acclaimed playwright Alan Ayckbourn, to those of the famous confectionery firms, Rowntree’s and Terry’s. Other highlights include the secret war diaries of E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax, who served as Foreign Secretary and British Ambassador to the United States during World War II, and the archive of The Retreat, a Quaker-founded hospital for the mentally ill, established in 1796, which pioneered humane, progressive therapies at a time when most other asylums were treating their patients as little more than animals.

Telegram from Noël Coward to Alan Ayckbourn

Telegram from famed playwright Noël Coward to Alan Ayckbourn on the premiere of his play, Relatively Speaking (1967)

Mon Apr

2012

Something green, something blue

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Behind the scenes, Managing information

Sharp-eyed visitors to The National Archives website will have spotted some big changes last week. For the first time since the website was launched in this form, we have added a new headline section. The bright green Archives Sector section now joins About Us, Records, Information Management and Shop Online.

Archives Sector website on launch day

This is a really important change for us, a key step on the path we are taking as we develop our role as archive sector leaders for England. The new section is designed to support archive services and their funders to develop and improve provision across the entire sector. That means more sustainable services, excellent preservation for the future, and increasing the options and quality of access to archives for all users.

Wed Mar

2013

Discovering discovery across the archives sector

Posted by Melinda Haunton in Behind the scenes

Three speakers on a platform, with a crowd watching them

The packed Forum programme included plenary panel discussions

The National Archives was pleased to host the third annual Archives Discovery Forum on 7 March. The Forum brings together information and archives professionals from across the UK to talk about how to open up access to collections and information about collections. You can see the full programme on the UK Archives Discovery Network (UKAD) website. The Forum is a key part of the work of the UKAD network, to get people together and discussing progress in this area. That can be about major changes to standards affecting the sector internationally or about improving awareness of individual archives’ collections, and anything in between. We know not everyone in the sector is progressing at the same rate, but so long as everyone is going in the same direction, towards ever-broadening access, there is value in sharing our progress.

Mon Dec

2012

Christmas in the UK Government Web Archive

Posted by Claire Newing in Technology and innovation

A sign in the supermarket yesterday advised me that there were only eight sleeps until Christmas. With that in mind it seemed like a good time to write a post with a festive theme.

Number 10 Christmas card 2009 - The official website of the Prime Minister's Office - archived 4th December 2009

The image above is taken from the website of the Prime Minister’s Office which was archived in December 2009. It shows the image chosen for the official Number 10 Christmas card that year. The accompanying text explains some of the changes the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and his wife made to make Number 10 more sustainable. I think the historians of the future will be interested to see the importance placed on sustainability and the environment.

Fri Nov

2012

Two weeks in the life of a Clore fellow

Posted by Emma Jay in Behind the scenes

Bore Place, Kent

When I joined The National Archives I couldn’t have imagined that I’d spend two weeks living on an organic farm in the name of work. But in late September of this year I found myself at Bore Place, a conference and study centre in the idyllic Kentish Weald, for the opening fortnight of the Clore Fellowship Programme 2012-2013.

I have had the great honour of being selected as one of 29 fellows on the programme, which is designed to support leadership development in the cultural sector. My own fellowship is supported not just by the Clore Leadership Programme but also by a consortium of national archive institutions: The National Archives, National Records of Scotland and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.

Most of my fellow fellows come from the UK, but there are also two from India, two from Jordan and two from Hong Kong. Our professional backgrounds range from theatre and dance to libraries and museums. Some are freelancers, while others work for big organisations.

Fri Nov

2012

The drive less shared

Posted by Tim Callister in Managing information

Despite over a decade in helping users understand information management and getting them to accept that shaping information in the way you need to use it can actually make them happier… it doesn’t matter. The only time I’ve ever seen users not default to a shared drive is if they are less than ten feet from a printer.

Applications have become richer in their functionality and what they can interoperate with to deliver ever more developed workflows and case management. There are tools which provide an entire platform that can let you do just about anything with information, from web publishing to day-to-day processing.

Still it doesn’t matter; shared drives trump everything, all the time, everywhere in the world. This blog post isn’t big enough to explore all the reasons why users do this (and there are many). But what I do have space for is this; two challenges – one for us and one for developers.

Challenge 1 – Us

Turning off the shared drive! ¹ I mean the complete shut down of the NTFS – no corporate drive and no user drives… nothing. Could it be done without risking information management and digital continuity? Would users spontaneously combust?

Notes:

1. This is a hypothetical challenge. Please don’t go to your ICT department demanding the shared drive be shut off this afternoon! ^

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