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RETURN OF THE EMPIRE:

Workshop 1: Large archival collections in museums & galleries

AHRC Workshops

Introduction

The first workshop (September 2007) focused on the difference between managing an archive and managing a museum collection. Curators are not archivists; there are procedures and facilities specific to archives that museums need to be aware of when accepting deposits of archival material. Participants from all interested groups - museums, archives, libraries, academic research, depositors and the general public - spent a day in intensive discussion about how to reconcile these different domains. Click the speakers' names below to see their presentations. Click here for the report of the discussion and resolutions from the workshop.

Keynots Address

PAUL LIHOMA, National Archivist of Malawi and Advisor to the Museum of the Society of Malawi.

SESSION 1: CHALLENGES FOR ARCHIVISTS

PATRICIA METHVEN, Director of Archives and Information Management, King’s College London
HELEN PYE-SMITH, Head of Resource Centre & Library at The National Archive.
ROSEMARY SETON, Former Keeper of Archives and Special Collections at SOAS, London.

SESSION 2: EXTERNAL PERSPECTIVES

TOM MORTIMER, Technical Director of Lemur Consulting.
BRIAN OLIVER, Rhodesian Army Trust.
DAVID KILLINGRAY, Goldsmiths College London.

Key recommendations included
  • Advice for museums about accepting archival collections should be drawn up. Museums and archives both need to pay more attention to the importance of support services for research, including good systems for communicating information about opening hours, accessibility etc., and adequate facilities for researchers.
  • Cross-domain cataloguing standards, especially meta-level descriptions enabling convergence between catalogues of artefacts, archives and published texts should become established and – importantly – disseminated to archivists, curators and appropriate training courses.
  • Funds should be earmarked (eg by AHRC) for a person/institution to develop and maintain a centralised directory of existing guidelines/good practice/standards and existing projects to develop such guidelines (eg MLA, SCAM). This overall co-ordination to be aimed equally at archivists and curators and to ensure dissemination across domains.

If you have any specific enquiries, please e-mail:raa@uwe.ac.uk