Religion and Heritage on Display

Last week I had the chance to attend the “Religion and Heritage on Display” conference held at the Institute of Archaeology at the UCL in London. How do people practice religion? The term “religion” covers a wide range of thoughts and beliefs, and museums are places where religious artefacts become lifeless objects. That was the main subject behind this conference which gathered a wide range of speakers and professionals from the Heritage and Religion sector.

Marion Browman -
Museum of World Religions project, Birmingham

After the usual coffee and biscuits session, the conference opened up with a magisterial introduction from  Marion Bowman - Museum of World Religions project, Birmingham. She spoke about the importance of religious objects and how these can engage with audiences and faith groups. Marion is also one of the investigators on the “Pilgrimage and England's cathedrals”, a project which studies the interaction between the cathedrals in England and the people who visit them.

Lucy Trench – V&A and Science Museum

Lucy Trench – V&A and Science Museum spoke about the challenges to display religious objects in a very small exhibition space. She had to confront this problem in “Europe 1600 – 1815”, an exhibition which comprises works from 17th to 18th centuries of European art and design.

Another real challenge was to show the diversity of faiths across Europe during those years, for example, how can you mention the Ottoman Empire and Constantinople if the V&A lacks objects from that period?

How a museum should approach religion when museums are not places of worship and veneration. In her new project, she is working with the Welcome Collection and the Science Museum for an exhibition that is going to compare the similarities between how people display faith in religion and science.

I think all the speakers made a good understanding of how we should use religious objects in museums and how we can find new ways to engage with new audiences and religious groups.

I am looking forward to learning more about displaying religious objects in future projects!

Francisco Castanon, 
Transforming Archives trainee

Archive Visits: M&S and ITV

Last Monday, Dave and I went on an Archive Trainees Group visit to the M&S Company Archive and the ITV Archive in Leeds.

The Michael Marks Building

The afternoon started with a presentation at the M&S Company Archive. The presentation covered a brief history of M&S, which began in 1884 as a market stall in Leeds, and the type of archives held by the company. As a business archives, the collections are very different to those held by Hull University and cover everything from the usual paper documentation, through photographs and marketing material, to M&S homeware, food packaging and clothing. In fact, because the archive contains such a significant mixture of paper archives and objects, the staff have to be fluent in the different descriptive standards used by both archives (ISAD(g)) and museums (SPECTRUM). M&S are clearly proud of their archival collections and actively use the material to support the brand. Recently, the collections have been used to inspire a new clothing line by Alexa Chung and old marketing images have been reproduced on homeware items, such as tea towels, to capitalise on the growing trend for anything retro. To increase internal use of the material, the archives have also created a bespoke online catalogue to cater for non-archival users and regularly respond to requests for images and information for immediate business needs.

WW2 fashions

Although, predominantly focused on supporting M&S needs and internal users, the archives also provides access to outside researchers (by appointment only) and operates a significant outreach programme. The programme incorporates school visits and workshops, group tours and reminiscence sessions for dementia sufferers. There is also an exhibition which changes every six months, of which we were given a tour, and a small shop. The exhibition is particularly impressive and contains some lovely examples of M&S clothing through the decades, TV advertising and audio material. There are also children’s activities available and an emphasis on interactivity.

M&S were the first to transport fresh refrigerated chicken dishes

During the visit, it was clear that the archives are particularly proactive in their collecting, ensuring that it is closely aligned to key company achievements. Collecting is focussed upon innovative items (e.g. use of new technologies), bestsellers, iconic pieces and weaker areas within the collection (apparently vintage menswear is difficult to acquire!). The archive also maintains ‘Archive Ambassadors’ in departments across the company, who regularly retain material for eventual deposit. As such, it appears that the archive is viewed as a positive addition to the company, an area that can help generate greater brand awareness, and not an unnecessary use of profits. Moreover, the building itself, named after M&S founder Michael Marks, has been designed to be as environmentally friendly as possible, in line with the company’s ‘Plan A’ to reduce waste and help protect the planet.

Having said goodbye to the M&S team, we walked the 20 minutes to the ITV Archive on Kirkstall Road, also home to some of the interior sets for Emmerdale. Although another example of a business archive with similar general priorities to M&S, the set up is very different, with the archive established as part of the wider Content Management and Rights Team.

Dusty bin anyone?

The visit began with a presentation covering the various sections that come under the wider team, with a focus on content and rights issues. Owing to its nature as a television broadcaster, ITV needs to be clear on which rights it owns or has use of, and the financial implications of those rights. In all, there are 6 different teams, working on similar but distinct areas of rights management, and the intricacies and complexities involved did sound a little overwhelming at times! However, their work is supported by a well-maintained, bespoke content management system, which is available to all ITV staff and includes entries relating to archival material. Such work is vital to the running of the business and involves a lot of short turn-around times!

The presentation was followed by a tour of the archives: an impressive run of storage rooms filled to the rafters with tapes, videos and film reels. In total, the archive holds approximately 240,000+ hours of film on 1.2m assets. There is a master and safety copy of every film and a significant amount of production material including rushes. However, owing to a need to create more space, some of the rushes are currently being sorted and disposed of, with only high value production material (e.g. bloopers) retained.

Some of ITV's thousands of films

Other ongoing projects include the installation of flood defences after a recent flood (which thankfully didn’t damage any material) and the consolidation of film reels obtained from different production companies under the ITV umbrella. Dealing with issues such as technological obsolescence is also a constant demand on resources and staff time and, with many other archives at the moment, ITV are taking their first steps into digital preservation.

All-in-all, the visits proved hugely interesting and provided fascinating insights into the different demands upon and priorities of business archives compared to university archives, such as Hull. And finally, of potential local interest: ITV are the proud custodians of the Rank Film Collection, which contains the original copies of many of Rank’s best known titles including the Carry On films!

Verity Minniti

Archives Assistant

Collecting in Tough Times

It’s no secret that the heritage sector has felt the effects of the recession and subsequent period of austerity severely. As a result, archive services in local authorities, universities and other sectors have had to scrutinize their practices and re-evaluate their priorities. In the face of reduced staff and funding, many collecting institutions have found their core activities, including collecting, challenged in new ways by a range of factors. It was in this climate that the Archives and Records Association (ARA) presented their workshop ‘Collecting in Tough Times’. Myself and two other staff from the University Archives attended the Northern Region event hosted at The Showroom in Sheffield last month (a beautiful art deco building which hosts an excellent horror film festival each autumn, if you’re so inclined!).

The Showroom cinema, Sheffield

The act of collecting archives is not as simple as it first appears. In the past many archive services actively sought to acquire the records of organisations whose activities were relevant to their remit. However for many this is no longer possible as reduced resources has limited their activities such that they have been forced to become passive collectors responding to offers of content rather than directly seeking it.

It often comes as a shock to people outside the field that we do not keep everything. Sometimes archives will refuse to accept donations, and as a matter of course that which we is accepted is likely to have items or sections removed and destroyed (this process is known as appraisal and is never done at the History Centre without the permission of the depositor). Changing priorities and difficult circumstances has left many organisations facing the complex task of ‘de-accessioning’ some collections from their holdings.

History Centre staff with some appraised records for secure destruction

The speakers’ range of backgrounds made it clear that the problems we face as a sector are similar regardless of the type of institution, and it was really interesting to hear about alternatives to traditional collecting activities. York Explore and West Yorkshire Archives Service have successfully contributed to the collecting activities of local groups external to the institution, demonstrating how archive services can continue to be central to the preservation of the historic record despite restrictions on our own ability to collect.

It was also stressed that archives shouldn’t be afraid to ask for funding contributions from depositors. This however is dependent on the right circumstances – a financially stable depositor with the means to support such work. My own project at the History Centre – the papers of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) was funded in a similar way. The level of engagement with this collection already felt at the History Centre demonstrates how both the public and the collection itself can benefit from such an arrangement.

Thanks to everyone who attended Collecting in Tough Times Workshop, see the tweets https://t.co/mcFosivydt @UkNatArchives #archivesCiTT

— ARA Northern Region (@ARANorthern) 25 April 2016

Many presentations addressed the need for institutions to be stricter on the material they accept in the first place. A suggestion was made that we ‘collect beyond our capacity’, that is, we are still accepting new content despite in many instances lacking the resources needed to process some of the collections we already hold. This lack of balance means there is a risk of archives holding large quantities of uncatalogued content which would not be accessible to the public without further processing. I learnt that museums will often only accept items into their holdings if they can guarantee that they will have adequate long term care and accessibility – not something taken into account by many archives when considering whether to accept donations.

In the afternoon we developed this idea further discussing what motivated us to say yes or no to offers of material for the archives. It became clear that a huge range of factors could influence such a decision including aspects relating to the records themselves, the institution and the potential for use. As with many things in the world of archives, there are no definitive – even something as ephemeral as a bus ticket may have value to the right institution in the right circumstances. Does this institution you work for specialise in transport ephemera? Was the bus ticket used by George Michael after his first Wham! performance on Top of the Pops after which the pair famously caught the bus home (this was the only celebrity bus story I could bring to mind). Is the depositor offering you a financial gift in exchange for preserving and cataloguing the ticket?

To sum up, it’s always great to see services successfully turning difficulties into opportunities, and although the sector has changed, archivists continue to have an essential role in the preservation of the historic record, although maybe not in a traditional sense. The place of appraisal in our work is an essential but complex one, and making decisions relating to the removal of content can sometimes become a routine task. Discussions like the one held in the afternoon are a great way of reconsidering what we as archivists are motivated by, how to retain balance in our decisions, and how to work effectively to support the public, the institution we work for and the sector as a whole.

Alex Healey, Project Archivist (ACPO)

ARA Core Training Audience Engagement: Strategies and Practices

I recently attended an ARA Core Training event at Cambridge Central Library, covering Audience Engagement Strategies and Practices (#ARAAudEng). I have frequently taken part in the outreach activities at the Hull History Centre with the History Makers sessions but I have not yet attended specific external training on the matter. This was an opportunity to see how other institutions have handled audience engagement and hear from their experiences.

Creative Approaches & Fun Palaces

The National Archives fielded two talks during the course of the event, the first on creative approaches towards audience engagement the second on their experiences of using Fun Palaces to engage with younger audiences. The National Archives obviously has a lot of experience with outreach events and as a result there was a lot of information given during these two talks relating to engaging with the public and how this can relate back to your organisation. 

One key idea that was reflected from speakers throughout the day was to utilise the resources that you have available, especially in regards to staff. People like to be able to get involved and if given the opportunity may surprise you in how willing they are to help out.

An effective use of what spaces you have available as well as the archives that you have feeds back into this idea of correctly utilising resources. Allowing the audience themselves to have some input and impact really helps to keep them engaged. 

In the Frontline – Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Records Office

One of the most inspiring talks at the conference was done by the Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland Record Office. Their entire presentation was based around a World War One theme which was the primary focus of their audience engagement program. 

I have to confess I have never seen a presentation in the Archives sector involve the participants directly before, but somehow they managed to get a room full of heritage sector workers to shout “Unity or Death” in Serbian (phonetically ooo-yedin-ye-ye ili smrt) as they covered how as part of their outreach events they ran a time accurate re-enactment of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

The success of this activity really boosted their 
confidence as well as staff morale as they moved onto other projects. Including the construction of a replica trench on the premises that has allowed them to run several Great War events and encourage different groups of people to go to the records office. It has also shown how much a good engagement event can be a fantastic learning tool, teaching groups of children about war in a way that they are far more likely to be actively interested in.

Other Talks

There were several talks that I just don’t have the room to talk about in as much detail but that were equally as interesting. Including a talk by the Transport for London Corporate Archives on how they raised their profile internally, something that had never occurred to me as being as important as external engagement but which has obvious repercussions. People need to know you exist in order to use your services, which includes those working under the same umbrella!

There was also a talk on the use of Social Media at the Tyne and Wear archives, it was very useful to have a talk from an institution that covers so many different forms of social media and who are willing to share their own experiences with them in regards to what has been working and what hasn't.

The Archives and Records Association themselves presented the opening talk around their experiences 
running the Explore Your Archive campaign. It was great to see the feedback from such a wide reaching campaign, what they felt worked and what could be improved upon. How effective it was in general and the difficulty of quantifying any results beyond anecdotal evidence. It was also a little different simply because this was an organisation attempting to engage archives, to provide them with tools to engage their audiences.

Conclusion

I found the entire day incredibly motivating, to see what different organisations have been doing to raise their profile and how successful it has been for them has really encouraged me in how the History Centre currently interacts with its audience.

It was a very useful and encouraging event, the idea of how much outreach and engagement can affect staff morale in such a positive way was definitely eye opening. Also how as an organisation you need to play to your own strengths both in the archives you have available as well as the staff who work there.

Quote of the day: “People will engage if they are invited and if they feel that their opinions have value.” - Sandra Shakespeare, The National Archives

David Heelas

Transforming Archives Trainee

Archivist as Interpreter

The other day I was lucky enough to attend The National Archives’ Archivist as Interpreter event at the British Library. The event was the culmination of the TNA’s Archiving the Arts initiative, which seeks to promote and support the capture, preservation and accessibility of records related to the arts. I was particularly interested in the events’ aim to ‘reconceptualise the idea of the archive to draw in new audiences and the leading innovative practices already taking place’. I really enjoy learning about ways in which people have made use of archive collections, particularly those which have attracted users who do fall outside the traditional demographic, and so was really excited to see what people had been up to and what had been learned. The day was crammed full of interesting talks and if I wrote at length on all of them this post would be very long! Instead I’ll offer a quick overview, with a focus on a couple of things I found especially interesting.

Entrance to the British Library

Jamie Andrews’ led the introduction, where we learned about the British Library’s ‘Vision for the Future’ in the lead up to their 50th anniversary in 2023 - this is supported by their Living Knowledge document. The keynote speaker was Paul Cornish of the Imperial War Museum. He talked about installing the museum’s new WWI exhibition, which sought to tell the story of the war using the voices of real witnesses, through archive documents. He expounded the idea of ‘contemporaneity’, allowing the records to speak for themselves and reveal how events unfolded. He suggested that it was important to avoid using the voice of the organisation which can sound authoritative and alienating, sometimes acting as a barrier between visitors and the items on display. After tea three speakers took part in a panel. Firstly, Victoria Northridge of the Black Cultural Archives. She talked about the range of outreach activities BCA engage in; encouraging people to use their space, taking their talks ‘on tour’ and making use of digital tools such as Google Cultural Institute to reach wider audiences. She was followed by Kevin Bolton of Manchester City Council, who shared his experience of cultural programming for Manchester Central Library and Archives+. This included the innovative and successful takeover week curated by the band Everything Everything entitled ‘Chaos to Order’ in 2014. He stressed the value of educating staff in new skills such as event management, while also explaining that engaging specialist professional support can be vital to such an events success. Finally Melissa Addey, writer in residence at the British Library’s Business and IP centre, took to the stage. She talked about encouraging businesses to explore their own stories, and that art as product should not be considered a contradiction. The panel discussion was varied, with some time spent considering whether there was crossover between audiences for 'traditional' and ‘non-traditional’ use of the archive, whether we could translate one audience into another, or indeed whether we should be trying to or not.



After lunch, still feeling giddy from all the morning’s information (and buying particularly beautiful pencils at the Alice in Wonderland pop-up shop), I went to my selected seminar. Choosing which of the four available was incredibly difficult as they all sounded really fascinating! I chose to hear Sarah Cole, a digital heritage consultant who runs TIME/IMAGE speak about how digital tools can help build audiences and inspire people who don't have a relationship with the source material. I have a real interest in this area, and enjoy exploring how people engage with archives in new ways as a result of new technologies. Sarah's experience with the British Council's film collection was a case study in how successful such a project can be, bringing what were in some cases completely unwatchable films into a digital format and providing access to them online, for free under a creative commons licence. Not only did the project gain a huge audience thanks to wide promotion in the media, but the films inspired the creation of new works. Her current project with the British Library, Poetic Places, is culminating in an app which will allow users to stumble across places represented in poetry and art through their smart phones using GPS. I found Sarah's talk valuable as it stressed the importance of considering why and for whom we are undertaking a project – if you're using a digital tool in your work are you doing so to build your audience, or to provide an existing audience with a learning resources or entertainment? A good reminder that although working with new tools is exciting you should always keep your goals in focus. It was also very lovely to see our own HullCraft project get a mention!



The final panel of the afternoon was based around interpretation of archives which feature challenging or problematic subject matter. The first speaker was Sarah Jaffray of the Wellcome Collection discussing their Sexology exhibition. She considered the potential of archives to legitimize through recording, and described the amazing results of the Neil Bartlett WOULD YOU MIND? project which took place during the exhibition. She was followed by Lisa Peschel, a co-investigator for Performing the Jewish Archive. She discussed the difficulties in bringing musicals written and performed by the Jewish community detained in Theresienstadt during Nazi occupation to a modern audience. She explored how humour in a performance written in very specific circumstances can be retained with careful re-writing, while successfully communicating the contemporary historical events which influenced the original work. The final speaker was Stefan Dicker of the Bishopsgate Institute. Stefan's talk was about the outreach work and collections held at Bishopsgate, some of which represent views and lifestyles which have at times been considered 'alternative'. This included the papers of the Mondcivitan Republic (previously unknown to me but now a mild obsession). Stefan spoke so compellingly, and with such enthusiasm for his work and the BI’s collections that it was impossible to leave without wanting explore their archives (which I have now done online – I certainly recommend taking a look at their website, if just for the Badger in Residence).  Stefan's message that only open minds can open minds, and archives only die if we let them seemed a really pertinent plea to those of us working in the sector to remember that if we want our collections to remain relevant we must be willing and able to find new ways of seeing, framing and presenting them. If we don't appreciate and exploit the vibrancy and life in our archives, how can we expect any one else to?

Bishopsgate Institute's 'Badger in Residence'

I think Val Johnson of The National Archives phrased a very succinct leaving message during the final wrap up – we need to let go of what we think archives should be and what archivists should be doing. There are many diverse pulls on our time in the workplace, especially as the sector continues to be faced with reduced funding. This can make it hard to look beyond our day to day tasks However, it's when we do this - when we think outside the box, take on new challenges with all the associated risks - that we find new successes and the collections we work with can benefit the widest audiences possible. With that in mind, I wonder how feasible it would be to arrange a performance-based multi-media interactive sensory installation in the History Centre Arcade…

Alex, ACPO Project Archivist

Press Start to Play: Archives and Videogames

Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2012 
Image licensed under CC by 2.0

What is the first thing that comes to mind when you imagine a videogame exhibition?

My first thought was an interactive, arcade-type display such as at the National Videogame Arcade or the Smithsonian American Art Museum's exhibition "The Art of Video Games" (right). 

What I had not considered was an exploration beyond the "game as artefact" viewpoint. This involves de-constructing the end product into a combination of design elements, from art to coding - and I was happy to discover it involved the use of archives!

With both my archives and gamer hat on, I ventured to the grand Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum for the “Videogames in the Museum” workshop (21st July). The aim of the workshop was to learn about the V&A's planning for an exhibition in 2017 where videogames will be portrayed as a significant medium in the history of design. 

Video Games in the Museum. Image by Author

During the workshop I was very fortunate to listen to curators from the V&A’s Design Architecture and Digital Department talk about the potential of archives, such as the work of the National Videogame Archive, for asking questions related to fan culture, authorship and players' experiences.

They claimed that it is not within the interests of most game designers and developers to archive their “ephemeral” design work and that there is an increasing need to begin recording material for preservation, curation and research. It was also suggested that archivists, curators and game developers should collaborate more to preserve these fragments of videogame history before they are lost, particularly with the ever-evolving challenges of hardware and software obsolescence.

The material that the V&A are interested in collecting for their exhibition include:

• transcripts of communications (meetings, emails) 
• model designs
• audio
• player experiences
• marketing ephemera
• coding

All these accompanying elements will serve an archival purpose beyond their 2017 exhibition, for example the V&A are also interested in collecting coding to assist with emulation research.

The Chinese Room Director and Composer, Jessica Curry,
talking about audio and storytelling. Image by Author.

Also presenting at the event were the award-winning game developers The Chinese Room whose games I have enjoyed playing in the past. It was interesting to hear direct from the developers themselves on the challenges of creating intangible and subjective experiences, such as nostalgia, within their upcoming game Everybody's Gone to the Rapture based in a Shropshire village from 1984.

From The Chinese Room’s presentation, the V&A curators then explored how such experiences and narratives could be presented in their exhibition- with the challenge in mind of exhibiting a playable 48 hour long game within the museum space! Their answer referred back to their interest in curating the development material of a game’s wider fan culture, such as reviews, art and videos, to emphasise cultural significance.

Overall, the key point I took away from “Videogames in the Museum” was the concept of the “total artwork”, or synthesis of art forms, with games being a combination of audio, visual and narrative design. If you remove one art form from the presentation of a game (such as not allowing an audience to hear the audio) it will disengage the player from the full experience. For an archivist, this means preserving each art form. All parts of the design layer should be documented and archived, alongside an effort to preserve the hardware (which is another large debate in itself!). 

All of the discussions were part of a larger project by the V&A where their exhibition is just the very beginning of a journey to build upon existing knowledge on how to archive and curate challenging design media. I will be looking forward to seeing how this exhibition develops!

Hannah Rice

Transforming Archives Trainee

H.Rice@hull.ac.uk

HullCraft at The Space Digital Arts Day

Hannah Rice and Joel Mills (middle) showing participants the HullCraft world.
Photo courtesy of The Space. Taken at The Space’s Digital Arts Day 2015.

On the 19th March, I ventured to Birmingham with Joel Mills for Digital Arts day at the Custard Factory, hosted by The Space (BBC & Arts Council England). It was a fantastic day showcasing a range of work by artists experimenting with digital technologies and how these impact on audience engagement.

We were kindly invited by Helga Henry, Director of The Creative Shift to provide demonstrations of our HullCraft project in their Digi Den enabling people to participate at the event.

The HullCraft project is about engaging new audiences with archives through the fun "digital LEGO" game Minecraft. Participants at Digital Arts Day could come and build real historical architecture from the Hull History Centre's archives on our live server, beginning with the works of the architect Francis Johnson. Minecraft expert or beginner, there was a building to suit all levels.

Participants exploring HullCraft, photo by Hannah Rice.

With thanks to The Space, we had a host of laptops set up for people to be involved with the project. 

During the two Digi Den sessions Joel and I were available to supervise the building and chat to people about HullCraft, Minecraft and archives.

This was a great opportunity for us to gain some feedback on the HullCraft experience and see how we can improve the project for future games sessions.

We had a brilliant day speaking to a variety of people about the project, and we even shared the DigiDen with the BBC Blue Room who were demonstrating exciting technologies such as virtual reality headsets!

Have a look at The Space's website and Storify of Digital Arts Day to see more images, information about the speakers and people's thoughts from the day. #bdw2015

You can also read our blog piece "Introducing HullCraft" on The Space blog.

Hannah Rice

Transforming Archives Trainee

H.Rice@hull.ac.uk

Here are a selection of photos from HullCraft in the DigiDen. (photos by Hannah Rice).

Lots of Francis Johnson architectural plans for participants to build.

Our recycled archive box Creeper made an appearance.

HullCraft Presents at the Digital Utopias Conference

On the 20th January I was very fortunate to be given the opportunity to present at the Digital Utopias conference run by Arts Council England.

The aim of the conference was to “capture topical and diverse approaches to curation, archiving, collecting and creating from a range of art forms, from the visual arts to theatre” (Arts Council England). With this in mind, I went to the conference in the knowledge that I was going to be surrounded by lots of highly creative, digitally-minded experts... and I wasn't wrong!

I was presenting alongside Joel Mills (iLearning UK) in the "Curating Networks" session on our engagement project called HullCraft (see www.hullcraft.com). This was my first national conference as a speaker. The most anxious part was waiting on the stage knowing I'm up next! Once it was my turn, I soon realised it was easier to speak than I had initially thought as the theatre became a sea of silhouettes rather than faces.

In the ten minute (and timed!) slot I spoke about many aspects of the HullCraft project, from how it came about, how the project opens up the archival material of Francis Johnson to participants and the people of Hull, and how Minecraft affects the user’s experience of learning about archives.

Joel then spoke about the research he has been doing with HullCraft and Minecraft in Higher Education, the future plans of HullCraft (such as Bring Your Own Device days, teacher workshops) and potential developments for linking in with Hull City of Culture 2017. 

The most exciting part of our talk was the “world premiere” of our HullCraft trailer which you can watch below (make sure you have it on full screen and your speakers on - it’s VERY exciting!)

There were lots of other interesting talks at Digital Utopias too!

The day began with a welcome from Martin Green, head of Hull City of Culture, who advocated that Hull has a “digital cluster” and is already paving the way as a digital utopia. There was a very positive and energetic feeling in the theatre when a vast show of hands arose to the question of "who's from Hull?" demonstrating his point that Hull is certainly paving the way as a "digital utopia".

Afterwards I went to see James Davis, Programme Manager at the Google Cultural Institute. I was most interested in his talk on their online exhibition of collections from museums and archives from around the world, all curated by the institutions themselves. My favourite aspect of the project was the World Wonders digital exhibition which enables you to browse and interact with historical locations such as Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal using street view, 3D animations and archaeological and archival photographs. James spoke about how the technology allows for institutions to collaborate on content curation and to extend the reach of their digital collections globally.

I also attended the “Archiving and Preserving in the Digital Age” clinic session led by Dragan Espenchied (Rhizome) and Luke Collins (Lux). This session asked: how do we ensure long-term access to digital information through collecting, archiving and preservation, and how do we archive digital art? During this workshop we explored emulation, migration and the issues surrounding preserving ever-evolving media. This is an area I find fascinating and is something I'm hoping to research more into during my traineeship.

Overall I had a fantastic day promoting the Hull History Centre in front of a huge audience and I hope we have inspired people to look further into integrating Minecraft with their work. This was a great opportunity to showcase HullCraft to an arts, heritage and culture audience, and I felt very privileged to have spoken on the same stage as the Google Cultural Institute and the V&A!

As we were busy presenting it meant we missed a lot of other talks, so have a look on the Arts Council England Website to see the online programme for the full list of presenters and to view official photography, podcasts and videos. See if you can spot us!

You can also follow the Twitter conversation with #artsdigital and #digitalutopias

Hannah Rice

Transforming Archives Trainee

H.Rice@hull.ac.uk

A Visit to The National Archives

I am very lucky to have just spent five days working at The National Archives in Kew as part of the ‘Transforming Archives’ programme with seventeen other trainees from archives across the UK. 

The National Archives buildings are impressive and surrounded by a lovely swan inhabited pond.

During our visit we were given a behind the scenes tour of the archives. We saw how material from one building to the next were transferred via motorised trikes and lifts when they were requested for viewing by the public. It was interesting to see the process of when someone requests a document, and how it is electronically tracked through every stage of its movement through the building quite like an airport system.

The storerooms are full of archival treasures from 1000 years of history, and there was one room which particularly sparked my curiosity. We were shown only the door as its contents were so valuable and secretive just very few in the whole organisation had the key. You could only imagine what was inside! 

Archivists are very skilled!

The staff were all very welcoming and experts in their fields. There is a lot of skill involved with being an archivist. We learned about the importance of archives, what makes an archive valuable and the potential barriers to public access. As archivists are now embracing the digital age, new skills need to be learned and standards need to be developed, for example with social media and 'born digital' records.

We spent each day working on a variety of skills and exercises that are important in the archives profession, such as pitching for funding and evaluating the success of outreach projects, as well as traditional skills such as preservation standards, accessioning (documenting the receipt of archives in your repository) and appraisal (selecting documents for permanent preservation in the archive).

We also had a session on blogging and created our own VoxPop videos (link to come later!) about ourselves and what we were doing in each of our traineeships, and looked at the use of virtual classrooms with the education team.

Digitisation on a Large Scale

As I am working on several digitisation projects this year, such as the Francis Johnson Grand Tour Diary, I spent an afternoon with the Commercial Delivery team. Each member of staff was part of a group that had a different but equally important role in the digitisation process. I spoke to staff beginning in the commission and acquisition of jobs, then to image capture on the overhead cameras, to quality checking each image and then the final transfer of the files to the customer.

It was interesting to see how a large scale organisation manages the files from each aspect of the process and how there is a procedure for rectifying errors such as missing pages or poor scans. I came away from that afternoon with a better knowledge of digitisation both as a commercial and preservation activity. It can increase accessibility to material that are at risk of being lost by no longer creating damage through handling, particularly to fragile documents.  In the wider world of heritage, digitisation as a service can also support not only archives services, but museums, historic sites and libraries too.

The Domesday book on an interactive touchscreen

Interactive Virtual Books

There was one use of technology within the public space of the archives which I thought was particularly useful for heritage interpretation. I was able to explore William the Conqueror’s Domesday Book on an interactive touchscreen within The National Archives ‘Keeper’s Gallery’ exhibition space. The touchscreen uses the ‘Turn the Page’ software to allow the user to leaf through pages and interact with the book using magnify and rotate features. I will be using similar software for the Francis Johnson Grand Tour diary project, and it was interesting to see an example of the technology being used and to experiment with its features.

This past week I have particularly enjoyed meeting the other trainees from services across the UK and learning from a range of perspectives and experiences. We will be meeting each other again for visits at each other’s archives to discuss each other’s services and learn from each other’s experiences which I think will be highly beneficial. I will be blogging about these in the near future! We have also been using the Twitter hashtag #TransformingArchives if you would like to keep up with the latest news from myself and the rest of the trainees as there will be much more to come.

Overall, I have learned over the course of my week is that archives need to be creative to survive. We need to engage with new methods of archives interaction and outreach to new audiences to make archives more accessible. But we also need to carefully reflect on our engagement methods by considering funding, audiences and how it will ultimately affect the archive in the long term.

Hannah Rice

Transforming Archives Trainee

H.Rice@hull.ac.uk

Digital Heritage 2014 conference

On Saturday I attended the Digital Heritage 2014 conference organised by the Centre for Digital Heritage at York with an eye to both current and possible future projects in mind. I was struck by the multi-disciplinary nature of the Centre and hope that the current initiatives at Hull based around the Creative Economy can be as effective.

My personal take on some of the 15 papers presented: 

Catherine Clarke (University of Southampton) delivered an excellent keynote highlighting her experiences in recreating medieval Chester and her current project on medieval Swansea bringing together a host of original sources to create engaging multi-media websites with elements for academic and public audiences. Both were funded through the AHRC (now why can't we do something like this for City of Culture in 2017!!).

Laura King and Jamie Stark (University of Leeds) asked us to consider the cultural value of digital engagement and whether the use of digital technology enhances or obscures access to the past.

Sanna Wicks (University of Birmingham) looked at the value of mobile apps and the preliminary results from her research won't surprise many - that the apps did lead to new information to be discovered, that most did generate a sense of engagement and enjoyment, that interactive maps were really popular and the over-riding conclusion that mobile interpretation can't be ignored.

Douglas Cawthorne (De Montford University) from the Digital Building Heritage Group demonstrated recent work with 3D scanning, using animation to bring to life reconstructions of buildings including the use of plans and drawings of buildings that were never physically built. (again very relevant to us given the thousands of plans and drawings held in the History Centre collections).

Mark Gibbs from Tullie House museum, Carlisle shared his experiences of gaming in museums and with working with the artist Adam Clarke to use Minecraft (something we are starting to explore using the Francis Johnson architectural collection - more on this hopefully in a few weeks!). (See an article on the Tullie house event)

Relive the conference via its Twitter feed  @CDHYork

Simon Wilson
Senior Archivist