Archival Musings

So my job title has changed, but I'm still not exactly sure what it is. I'm in a newly formed department that contains one staff member (me), called "Digital Initiatives". I've started a new blog on Blogger called The Unruly Librarian, so if you have the courage, follow me over there...

I haven't posted here for a while because pesky life and work got in the way.

I've been away for 10 weeks in the US on an internship and as a result (or maybe not as a result, I'm not sure), my job will be changing fairly soon. Which means this blog will be changing. More soon.

In the interim, I'll point you to two interesting posts you can read while I step into my phone booth and change a-la Clark Kent/Superman...

- Johann van Wyk of the University of Pretoria writes about the South African Library blogosphere. And cites meeeee, even though my paper hasn't actually been published yet.

- I don't really understand a word of this article, but apparently it promises that soon, we'll be able to store data for a billion years. Okaaaaaay.

 

Scrap "Nerds Academy". I've decided to rename the Academy "The Fat Farm". All we did was eat! Oh the suffering we endured. Cooked breakfast, homebakes for tea, cooked lunch, more homebakes for afternoon tea and a three course dinner. I'm too scared to get on a scale.

 

I'm away on a Librarian's Academy (which, secretly, I've renamed the Nerd's Academy), so I don't have time to create any new content here. Instead, I'll point you to a brilliant post over at The Digital Archive: Those New Archivist Ads. Enjoy.

Last week, I attended a conference on Archives, organised by Unisa's Department of Library and Information Science. I presented a paper called Policies and Services in the Reading Room. Here in our department, we're always debating what kind of services and policies we should have, so I was interested to find out what policies and services existed in other academic archives in South Africa. I looked at issues like whether gloves are required for the handling of photos and documents, whether digital cameras and personal scanners were allowed in the reading room for copying of archival material, and charges for basic services like photocopying and scanning.

Here's my powerpoint presentation: Policies and Services in the Reading Room web version.ppt

I've submitted the paper for possible publication, so I'll include a link to that if it gets published. 

I know you've all been waiting with bated breath for this. Or maybe not, but here it is anyway:

This is the cover of our very good looking brochure, which is available for downloading from our web site.

Go and have a look at it at www.lib.uct.ac.za/mss. There's a nifty little hyperlinked image, and clicking on it allows you to download the pdf brochure. It contains all you ever wanted to know about our archive but were afraid to ask. 

Our department holds photographs and newspaper clippings of the Mafeje Affair, including 2 issues of the "Underground Varsity". This month, students who were involved in the sit-in will be gathering here at UCT for a reunion.

We took this opportunity to mount a digital exhibit on our web site of some of the photographs that we have of the protest. (View them via http://www.lib.uct.ac.za/mss)

Apart from the actual content, what's interesting about this exhibit is the platform that I chose for it. I've been watching academic library and archive use of Flickr for a while now and even experimentally uploaded a few photographs of Cape Town to get a feel for it. What I love about Flickr is that you're sending your content out, rather than waiting for people to come and look at your site. I also like the social aspect of it: the tagging and commenting facility allows viewers to provide more information about the photograph than the archive originally had. 

Since starting with Flickr, I've been making contact with a number of other libraries and archives who are using it as a platform for their digital content. 

Yesterday, I came across these interesting discussions about the use of Flickr. There seems to be a bit of a debate about whether Flickr is appropriate for academic content. 

My opinion is that it all depends what your intention is in the first place. Do you want to reach out to new audiences? Do you want to ask people to supply more information or even more content to an existing collection? Then Flickr is the perfect place. 

Go and have a look at the exhibit. It's still a work in progress - there are a few more images to be added - but you'll get the general idea. 

Edited to add: I forgot to say that it's impossible to upload photos onto Flickr from UCT campus! I've had to do all the work from home. Something to do with ISA? Who knows....

I ran a digitisation workshop for library staff last week. It's taken me this long to recover and write about it.

Joking.

I thought I'd write up a list of things I learned about running a workshop like this, partly so I'll remember for next time, and partly to allow others to learn from my mistakes:

1. Make it clear in your invitation what kind of digitisation you'll be covering. Digitisation for archival storage and digitisation of your personal photographs are two totally separate things.
2. If a tech-savvy person asks to attend a basic digitisation workshop, find out why, because chances are, they've misunderstood the level of the workshop and they'll be bored by your prattling about what a scanner is.
3. Your 'ready' and the IT department's 'ready' might be two totally different things. Explain what you want beforehand, because you might find yourself with no equipment at the beginning of the session.
4. Remember to ask people to bring examples of items they'd like to digitise. That way, the 'hands-on' session will be much more interesting to participants.
5. Decide beforehand how long you want the hands-on session to be, otherwise you'll spend the time panicking that you're running out of time to get through the rest of the material.
6. Ask for feedback - perhaps a feedback form.

Another reply to my survey. Woohoo! That's 3 in 3 weeks. Sigh. Perhaps it's time to start phoning and badgering people. What do you think?

North said that I should sally forth. Totally agree. It's easy to advertise to students and staff who want to use the archives. It's not as easy to motivate colleagues to converse and share ideas. But yes, I agree, the conversation won't happen unless we make it happen.

In September, I'll be presenting a paper at a conference on policies in South African academic archive Reading Rooms. Which is a mouthful, but it's basically a look at what South African archives allow and don't allow in their Reading Rooms: do they allow use of digital cameras? Do they restrict access? Do they allow researchers to handle photographs with their bare (gasp!) hands? That sort of thing.

I prepared a little survey - just 10 questions - that I asked my population to fill in. (Can you see I've just recently been on a statistics course? I can now throw words like 'population' and 'sample' into casual conversation.) 

The response hasn't been great. It's been 3 weeks and I've received 2 replies. 

The exercise got me thinking about communication amongst archivists and librarians. I've been a librarian for 18 years and I've worked in the archives for 8. How many of the people that I contacted for my survey have I met and chatted with? Two. How many librarians and archivists from other institutions do I speak to on a daily basis? None.

I'm all for exchanging of ideas. It's ridiculous to think that when we're creating policies, or starting a new venture, we have to flounder around as if no one before us has done exactly this and might be able to help.

I read the blogs of archivists and librarians daily. But they're all American. They're helpful up to a point - I've contacted one or two of them to get tips and advice or to comment on their ventures - but it would be wonderful to have a similar conversation happening in South Africa. 

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