Learning for the heck of it

Holly Fairhall posted a link to a youtube video of Stewart Lee eloquently explaining why university places and the arts should be government funded and the narrow minded thinking that motivates the decision makers. I haven't re-posted the link. You can access it on Holly's blog.

Lee's main point revolves around the belief that knowledge, learning and creativity are valuable for their own sake. He fears that the prospect of massive student debt will create a generation of people who appreciate education only for its money-making potential. Whether this is being done deliberately to rid most of Britain (all except Scotland) of independent thought or not, this is a chilling prospect. Personally, I love learning. Professionally, I need people who love to learn adn who appreciate the value of archives and of archivists. What will we do if people aren't encouraged to be interested in the world they live in?

Access and Accessibility

As a digital archivist I'm responsible for a lot of digital stuff. Records that I need to make available to the public. Preferably, this will happen in an on-line situation where multiple users can view the material from anywhere in the world. But “access”, it seems, is an ambiguous term. What do we aim to achieve when we set out to provide access? Are providing access and making our material accessible the same thing? I don't think so.

It's clear that access can be narrowly defined as "getting the stuff", whereas accessibility incorporates so much more. In order to make our collections accessible, we need to provide archival descriptions. That is, we must supply the means by which the records can be understood and appreciated in ways that allow users to make meaningful use of them. This is kind of a “well, duh” statement, and I was pleased to note that ISAD(G) clearly states that: “The purpose of archival description is to identify and explain the context and content of archival material in order to promote its accessibility.” Making records easily available (physically or electronically) is not the same as making them accessible.

RAD unpacks this a little by stating that archival description serves three specific aims: to provide access via retrievable descriptions; to promote understanding by documenting the content, context and structure of records; and to provide information relevant to establishing the authenticity of the records. I like these very much. Further on, RAD states that: “to ensure effective access to archival material, decisions related to description and the choice of access points should reflect the archivist’s obligation to all users.” This is great. An “all-user” focus demands that we think of different users – in-house, academic, genies, etc – and how we can meet all of their information needs.

DACS has a slightly different approach. For DACS the main purpose of archival description is “the creation of access tools that assist users in discovering desired records.” The foremost access tools DACS refers to are catalogues and inventories. So for DACS, archival descriptions lead to the creation of finding aids. This explanation of A&D emphasises discoverability and does not mention making the records understandable or meaningful to users. The rest of this section discusses different access points and how to incorporate them into your descriptions.

And what does all of this mean? It explains why providing access to the digital material is not enough. It also emphasises the importance of archival descriptions to the concept of access. Without context there is no understanding, and without understanding there is no meanngful use.

Busy doing this

This afternoon was Friday afternoon. As a treat to myself I put aside the pressures of work and challenges of being an archivist and went to Holly Fairhall's blog. After appearing so suddenly, and attracting so much interest, My Archiving Hell deserves to be read, followed and admired. It's also nice that the discussion regarding the current job market is taking place not only on the listserv, but also on the Society of New Archivists facebook page and people's personal blogs.

I also found, through the 'comments', other blogs that I can explore. We need more Friday afternoons!

Commenting on the Conference

Doh, the link provided in my last post to the Conference blog doesn't work. Thanks Carrie Schmidt for pointing this out. Here's another attempt: Conference blog.

Thanks also to John Chambers for noting that the conference pages on the SoA site are no longer restricted. They're here. It did seem un-like the Society/Association to shut off these pages.

Archives and Records Association Conference 2010

I am somewhat ambivalent in my response to the Conference this year. Some of the talks were worthy of note, namely Terry Cook’s Keynote Address and Sarah Wickham’s paper. Most of the other presentations I found, in general, to be interesting. It was good to hear the “this is what I do and how I do it” sort of paper. But I was not particularly challenged or inspired or encouraged, nor did I learn anything.

My notes are few. For what it’s worth, here are five thoughts:

• In his opening address “Missing Piece or First Responsibility: Archival Appraisal Past, Present and Future” Terry Cook noted that appraisal is the first and most important archival task from which all others flow. We can debate this, but in the end I think it’s a pretty valid truth.


• Chris Pickford, in his presentation on “Appraisal Issues: Local Authority deposited building plans” noted that appraisal is one area of our work where we truly are a profession because it involves a professional opinion.


• Karl Magee’s presentation on “Embracing the archival muse: finding art in the archives” was really great. Very interesting.


• Louise Ray tried to challenge us with finding a definition, or definitions, of a ‘Living Archive’. Her presentation “The ‘Living Archive’: myth, reality or aspiration?” was the only truly thought-provoking part of the conference and did gain some thoughtful points from the audience (although I suspect not as many as Ms Ray had hoped for).


• Martin Astell from the Essex Record Office played some audio material as part of his presentation “’Not Just Oral History, in Fact Not Just History’: The Acquisition of Sound Archives in Specialist and Non-Specialist Repositories”. It is always a pleasure to hear Mr Astell talk about his work and the sound collections in Essex.

On a final note, I was disheartened to see that the Conference Pages on the Society/ARA webpages are restricted to members only. I understand why presenter’s papers and PowerPoint slides may be restricted, for a short period, but surely some of this information can be opened to the public. The Programme? How do we encourage debate and inspire/attract others if we’re precious with our information?

The Conference blog is, as it was last year, a disappointment. Only four posts! And these didn’t make it past the Keynote Address. Sometimes it appears that, as a profession, we’re not engaging with this new social media technology at all.