When the TNA announced budget problems earlier this year their coping strategy included limiting opening hours and having dirtier windows (as well as firing people – I don’t want to suggest bad things aren’t happening). The Australians, being on a much larger geographical scale, are responding to budget difficulties by planning to close 3 of their regional offices: Darwin, Adelaide and Hobart. The NAA’s Director-General, Ross Gibbs, put up a statement today on their webpages. In it, he notes that: “The decision to close the Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart offices was based on the knowledge that they could not endure any more budget cuts while still maintaining the high level of service that they are known for.”
Personally I don’t see how no service at all is better than one that includes, for example, fewer opening hours and more grime on the glass. But the bit that worries me is this: “we are considering the future of the records in these locations. Some of the records may be relocated to our repositories in Sydney or Melbourne, while others may be relocated locally under a memorandum of understanding arrangement with other sympathetic local cultural heritage institutions.” In a democratic society it doesn’t seem right that the government off-loads responsibility, including the costs, for public records. Also, what “local cultural heritage institution” is going to have the funds and space to take on this extra material?
November 13, 2009
November 09, 2009
Stories straight to your mobile
From an article in the Times on the possible demise of storytelling (put up by the American listserv – thanks guys) I discovered Keitai Shosetsu, novels written for, and sent to, the mobile phones of Japanese mobile phone owners, and the Centre for Future Storytelling.
These need further investigation.
These need further investigation.
October 30, 2009
Old diaries in blog form
I haven’t been paying much attention for the past couple of weeks. In general that is. But, I have been avidly reading these two blogs: Voyage of the Vampire and My Diary and my secret.
Quite a few archives are doing this sort of thing, posting old diary entries in real time in blog format. It’s brilliant.
Quite a few archives are doing this sort of thing, posting old diary entries in real time in blog format. It’s brilliant.
October 15, 2009
Blog Action Day 2009 - climate change
The topic for blog action day 2009 is “climate change”. I’ve been thinking about what to write for most of the week and I’m surprised to find that climate change doesn’t strike me as particularly relevant to the archival world. Extreme weather will obviously threaten our buildings and infrastructure. Worst case scenario sees the archive slide away in an earthquake induced mud-slide. Lest worst case sees our air-conditioning bills rise.
Archives will become more important, I think, once the damage is done. After the world has frozen over and then thawed out, or been swallowed by the sea and then re-emerged, whoever remains will be able to trace the growth and effect of climate change on the earth and on human society. Provided we have our collecting policies in order. Post-end-of-the-world researchers will certainly have an advantage over current day climate change researchers. For starters they’ll have a much larger body of documentary records to consult such as science reports on fossil and rock samples, adverts for green light bulbs and washing machines, debates on the causes of climate change, campaign material aimed at limiting the devastating effects on poorer countries, etc. Let’s hope the surviving people can read and that the computer servers etc still work.
Perhaps climate change won't be apocalyptic. In either case, archives and libraries should be accumulating a wide diverstiy of resources related to climate change and to the debate, reaction, controversy, etc that surrounds it.
Archives will become more important, I think, once the damage is done. After the world has frozen over and then thawed out, or been swallowed by the sea and then re-emerged, whoever remains will be able to trace the growth and effect of climate change on the earth and on human society. Provided we have our collecting policies in order. Post-end-of-the-world researchers will certainly have an advantage over current day climate change researchers. For starters they’ll have a much larger body of documentary records to consult such as science reports on fossil and rock samples, adverts for green light bulbs and washing machines, debates on the causes of climate change, campaign material aimed at limiting the devastating effects on poorer countries, etc. Let’s hope the surviving people can read and that the computer servers etc still work.
Perhaps climate change won't be apocalyptic. In either case, archives and libraries should be accumulating a wide diverstiy of resources related to climate change and to the debate, reaction, controversy, etc that surrounds it.
October 13, 2009
Visit to Birmingham
On Friday I took annual leave and travelled up to Birmingham to look at the Staffordshire Hoard. We took the coach and then waited in line for almost 3 hours to see the display. Was it worth is? Yes. The items were lovely; such amazingly intricate patterns.
But, we thought Birmingham Museum could’ve stepped up to the plate in better form. Two criticisms: firstly, finances and secondly, crowd movement.
In order to keep the hoard local a lot of money needs to be raised. Yet the museum shop had no Anglo-Saxon themed merchandise. Considering the crowds of people willing to travel long distances and queue for hours it should follow that we’d want to buy a souvenir of this “one off, must do thing to tell your kids about”. I wanted to buy a book and look at the usual Celtic jewellery. My companion expected to take home a cheap mug. What a wasted opportunity to raise funds.
Crowd movement within the display room was also a problem. The items were in a largish room, in short rectangular cases. We thought they let too many of us in at a time. This meant we were 3 or 4 deep around each case and had to wait ages to get near enough to see. We thought the use of long cases would’ve spread us out. Also, if there had been information provided (about the find, about Anglo-Saxon life, etc) say on the walls between the cases, this would also have spread us out, or at least distracted us from the frustration of not being able to see. Arguably this would also have encouraged us to linger, rather than keep moving, but we couldn’t move anyway. Another idea we had was if they provided a staff member at each case to tell us about one or more of the items, after their short speech we’d’ve felt that we’d done that case and there would’ve been a natural progression around to the next case.
After seeing the Hoard a trip to the British Museum was in order, to once more look at the Sutton Hoo exhibit. The sword hilts and bosses are identical to those from Staffordshire. It will be interesting to see what the experts make of this new find.
But, we thought Birmingham Museum could’ve stepped up to the plate in better form. Two criticisms: firstly, finances and secondly, crowd movement.
In order to keep the hoard local a lot of money needs to be raised. Yet the museum shop had no Anglo-Saxon themed merchandise. Considering the crowds of people willing to travel long distances and queue for hours it should follow that we’d want to buy a souvenir of this “one off, must do thing to tell your kids about”. I wanted to buy a book and look at the usual Celtic jewellery. My companion expected to take home a cheap mug. What a wasted opportunity to raise funds.
Crowd movement within the display room was also a problem. The items were in a largish room, in short rectangular cases. We thought they let too many of us in at a time. This meant we were 3 or 4 deep around each case and had to wait ages to get near enough to see. We thought the use of long cases would’ve spread us out. Also, if there had been information provided (about the find, about Anglo-Saxon life, etc) say on the walls between the cases, this would also have spread us out, or at least distracted us from the frustration of not being able to see. Arguably this would also have encouraged us to linger, rather than keep moving, but we couldn’t move anyway. Another idea we had was if they provided a staff member at each case to tell us about one or more of the items, after their short speech we’d’ve felt that we’d done that case and there would’ve been a natural progression around to the next case.
After seeing the Hoard a trip to the British Museum was in order, to once more look at the Sutton Hoo exhibit. The sword hilts and bosses are identical to those from Staffordshire. It will be interesting to see what the experts make of this new find.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)