I discovered this brilliant animation today:
Archives Hub have posted a report on the conference held last week here. I wholeheartedly support Jane's outlook and approach to Archives 2.0 and I think the work that the Archives Hub has been done with
"an admirable sense of adventure, a sense of the missed opportunities that too much naval-gazing can bring about and also a general appreciation that if something takes relatively little time to do or to set up then it might be worth taking the plunge and seeing how it goes."
Was alerted to these tweets by ArchivesNext. They were live tweets from the conference Archives 2.0: Shifting Dialogues between Users and Archivists down in Manchester this week.
I think we'll be able to get a better idea of the conference from the ArchivesHub blog in the next week or so. However, its interesting to see twitter being used in this way and there are some useful links and thoughts about Archives 2.0 from the conference captured by twitter.
The book cover archive and its accompanying blog are really more of a personal interest thing but hey it has archive in the title so I thought I'd put it on here as a tenuous link and a little bit of Monday whimsy.
I thought it was interesting that the site allows users to search by typeface as well as by the expected designer, author, title and publisher fields. Typography is a key part of book cover design and an element that users would want to be able to search on and this functionality gives the site added value.
The site also has the ability to comment and submit information to the site editors about each book cover.
An email on the NRA listserve from the National Council of Archives pointed me to this extract available from Hansard about the future of the Minton Archive of the Royal Doulton Ltd company.
As Lord Redesdale says in the extract this is not the first business archive that will have to be bought following the collapse of its parent company and it does make you wonder what will happen to these collections should other companies fall victim to the economic problems.
The debate mentions that the archive has been valued and will be marketed by Bonhams and the Lords are rightly concerned about the possibility of keeping the archive in the local area when the administrators must focus on getting the best price for it.
Is there anything that Archivists can do to help preserve business heritage and records? A draft National Strategy for Business Archives (England & Wales) was released in January this year and one of its recommendations at an individual level is for Archivists to work hard at developing networks of expertise and shared experience to help improve the handling of business records.
Is there a role for Web 2.0 to help foster communication and networks amongst professionals? Are the listserves and society meetings enough? I've certainly found that when searching for information about practical archive issues such as how to construct a catalogue, the best boxes to buy, procedures for handling accessions there is very little available information out there being shared. This probably leads to a lot of reinvention of the wheel by individuals and if you are working alone you're probably never quite sure if you're doing it right. I'd like to see a central resource of practical tips and templates, the SOA site does this to a certain extent but its hard to find what you are looking for and often the material is restricted to members only.
The draft strategy doesn't explicitly mention use of Web 2.0 tools as being part of the solution but I think they could help.
Well I'm back on the blogging wagon, after a busy christmas and new year, starting a new job and reading too many craft blogs I'm ready to get back on board the Archives 2.0 wagon.
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