Archivists are voices in the wilderness?

 Like (I think) every archivist, historian, and genealogist who encountered this proposition, I was horrified by the weaselly-entitled press release from the Ministry of Justice a few weeks ago: Easier access to historic wills under new government plan: Genealogists, historians and amateur family archivists will be better able to access historic wills under proposals published today.

Who is not excited by the thought of improved digital access to a valuable historical resource?

And then we discover that nothing has been learnt from a whole long history of 'space-saving' initiatives (I can remember the days of 'microfilm the lot!!') and digital projects which are now inaccessible because the technology has moved on and it is proposed to destroy the originals except for a few 'noteworthy wills which hold historical importance'. 

Chorus of horror.

How, I also wonder, are these digitised items to be made available? Metadata? One can think of all sorts of ways these documents could be deployed for far deeper ventures in research than just the testamentary dispositions of particular individuals, but this would require some thinking about, some consultation with people who have undertaken previous projects....

They don't yet seem to have got even The National Archives on board for their deliberations, which one would have thought would have been an essential starting-point.

I see I addressed some of the questions arising here, yet again (sigh) in this post: that digital does not mean for ever, that it's not just about nostalgia for the quaintness of some past phenomenon, and that we do not know what future historians are going to think is important.

The Open Consultation is taking responses until 23 February 2024

What's online is < 1% of the primary sources worldwide

If Dan Snow thinks he can do history by searching primary source material from the comfort and convenience of his office, I fear he is not doing very sound or thorough history. Yes, digitisation is making a lot of material available without the stress and strain of visiting actual archives, but as an archivist, and as a historian who has just returned from a trip involving crossing Canada from Toronto to Victoria to look at archival collections which it is unlikely will go online within the foreseeable future, I think I can state fairly categorically that any historian who thinks they won't ever need to go and get hands-on with the sources is limiting themself in ways that are very bad for the process of history.

I refer back to my post in late April flagging up the problems of what is given priority in digitisation programmes, how complete it is, how much necessary context is there.

I might also remark that in many instances I have encountered, repositories holding important collections of personal and institutional papers don't necessarily even have a decent online catalogue so that one can ascertain what they've actually got.

Plus, maybe the research Mr Snow conducts does take him to glamorous places, but many archives are to be found in locations which are not only not particularly places one would choose to visit for any other reason, but not even particularly easy to get to. (Though I will say, Victoria BC in June is lovely, even if most of my days were passed in a semi-basement furiously making my way through handwritten and occasionally typed correspondence.)

What has possibly transformed research in this digital age (from my experience on the basis of this recent research trip) is the ability to take digital photos of the documents for later perusal (I was fortunate to be working in special collections which permitted this). Having  worked, in the past, in institutions where there was not even a routine procedure for obtaining photocopies and one was obliged to rely on the kindness and available time of the staff, or in other institutions where the charges were inordinately high presumably to discourage the ordering of large amounts, being able to take away images from collections which I had a very short time to ingest has been a major boon.

Digitisation: not the answer to the space problem with archives

There's recently been quite a furore about the controversial decision of Barnado's children's charity to digitise its remarkable collection of photographs by Dr Barnardo of the 'waifs and strays' whom he was providing with a refuge in Stepney, dating back to at least 1875. While digitising these will provide much wider access to this important collection, concerns have been raised that the original photographs were in line for destruction once this had taken place.

As I have previously commented, digitisation, though a tremendous asset in increasingly availability of historical records to those unable to visit them in person, cannot be considered a robust preservation medium. Photographic and other historians have also raised the issue that the originals may well provide evidence which is not going to be harvested through the digitisation process.

A post on the Voluntary Action History Society blog summarises the current state of play and raises the continuing issue of 'third sector' bodies which hold historical archives which are no longer relevant to their work in the present. While Barnardo's may no longer adhere to Dr Barnard's own practices, but is still closer in aim than some other bodies - the archives of the National Association for the Prevention of  Consumption (prior to their transfer to the Wellcome Library) remained in the custody of a successor body whose concerns had shifted considerably with the decline of TB as a pressing public health problem.

The blog post suggests the sale of the archive as one option, a strategy that raises significant concerns given that much of it must surely remain subject to Data Protection issues. However, it appears that there have been some expressions of interest in providing a home for the archive, and it is to be hoped that it will be placed in some suitable repository where it can be adequately cared for and made available for research.

The rather occasional good news about historical sources

A nice post in The National Archives blog on Documenting LGBT history across the UK - which is as much about bringing things into visibility within existing archives as generating new sources such as oral history. A bit miffed that they don't mention the Wellcome!

Not archives, but rare books: Kerala State Central Library: Rare Books Online. These look like very much the kind of things that are very difficult to find.

Though, while I'm delighted the researcher found it: Found: 500-year old wanted man warrant for Machiavelli, the Florence State Archives are pretty much the place that one would start looking, surely ! How lost was this item, or was it just a case of going through files and files of unindexed early C16th warrants? 

Wonderful for access, for posterity, not so much

This is an account of a very exciting project to digitise the AIDS Quilt. However, while this demonstrates the exciting possibilities for access and research opened up through digitisation, there is a very problematic statement by a graduate student studying art conservation about its value for long-term preservation for posterity:

One hundred years from now, when the textiles break down, you can still have the digital effort

Textiles are a great deal more robust than digital media. While we may hope that the necessary steps are taken (and the resources made available) to migrate the digitised records through changes in hardware and software over time, digital records are very ephemeral and may become unreadable within a very short period after creation. The Bayeux Tapestry is still in existence after nearly 1000 years, unlike many computer-generated records of far more recent date.