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.