3rd Archivoz Symposium (First Session): Citizens in Archives

The first session of our two-part workshop brought together three speakers working on projects that involve citizen participation in the work of archival preservation. Crowdsourcing has been integral particularly to transcription projects in recent years, and our speakers, having developed and overseen this sort of project, have a privileged view of their inner workings—how to recruit, train, and motivate volunteers, and what a successful project looks like, both during and after. Most importantly, they understand the importance of cooperation and collaboration to the task of preserving our shared heritage, and they shared some of this with us today.

[0:07:21] Lisa Cardy and Ceri Humphries started us off with a presentation on Digitally Unlocking Nature’s Archive (DUNA), a project undertaken in partnership with Zooniverse, “the world’s largest and most powerful platform for people-powered research.” Crowdsourcing, citizen science and online volunteer projects are now established methods of generating and/or enhancing research outputs. Studies indicate that machine-readable transcriptions of handwritten historical documents can be generated both efficiently and economically via well-planned and managed crowdsourcing projects. The Natural History Museum’s Library and Archives are home to a rich and significant collection of unique manuscripts and hand-annotated original drawings. These handwritten collections contain a wealth of scientific, historical and social research data and information that until now has remained digitally inaccessible. Digitally Unlocking Nature’s Archive has been developed to harness the power and interest of ‘the crowd’ to help make collections digitally discoverable, accessible and open to all.

[0:26:04] Audience questions.

[0:33:16] Rebecca Bailey, of Historic Environment Scotland, presented on Towards a National Collection. At the centre of this £18.9m research development programme is the aim to increase engagement with the cultural heritage collections of the UK. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the programme is working to link collections and encourage cross-searching of multiple collection types, to enable research and enhance public engagement. The presentation outlined the different ways that citizens can participate in the research and influence the development of a future national collections research infrastructure.

[0:58:00] Audience questions.

[1:09:26] Round table discussion between all three speakers.

Note: Unfortunately, due to a family emergency, Dr. Tomás Mac Conmara, who was slated to present on the process of oral history collection and the preservation of recorded memory, was not able to join us as planned, but I would encourage you to check out his work all the same.

Speakers:

Lisa Cardy

Interim Head of Library and Archives at Natural History Museum, London

Lisa Cardy is Interim Head of Library and Archives at the Natural History Museum, London, and directs the services, activities and systems that enable users to discover and access Library and Archives collections and resources, in both physical and digital forms. In addition, this role manages the Museum’s institutional repository, formulates and drives the LA digitalisation programme and leads the development of activities and tools that facilitate digital scholarship, opening the data within our collections and the availability of digitalised collections.

Ceri Humphries

Digital Special Collections Librarian at Natural History Museum, London

Ceri Humphries is Digital Special Collections Librarian at the Natural History Museum, London. She works with the Library’s Special Collections (rare books, artworks and manuscripts) and on the development and implementation of digital scholarship initiatives across the Library and Archives. Ceri is a qualified archivist and a committee member for the Archives and Records Association (ARA)’s Section for Archives and Technology.

Rebecca Bailey

Programme Director at owards a National Collection

Rebecca M Bailey is currently Programme Director of the £19m research funding programme Towards a National Collection. She is assigned to the programme full time for five years (2020-25) by Historic Environment Scotland, where she has worked since 2004. Her most recent role was Head of Exhibitions and Outreach. In addition to coordinating research funding and a PhD programme, she initiated a series of touring exhibitions in museums and historic properties throughout Scotland, as well as curating two substantial exhibitions in Nanjing Museum in China. She was Principal Investigator of the related international research project ‘Producing/Consuming Romantic Scotland’. She is currently President of the International Confederation of Architectural Museums, and an Advisory Council member of the International Council of Museums.

Tomás Mac Conmara

Manager at Cork Folklore Projec

Tomás Mac Conmara is an award-winning oral historian and author from County Clare in the west of Ireland. In 2016, he was commended by President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins, as one of seven recipients who have made outstanding contributions to culture over the last 100 years for a Comhaltas Centenary Award. He began documenting oral tradition and folklore as a teenager and is now recognised as one of the leading oral historians in Ireland. From 2008 to 2014, he led the foundation and development of Cuimhneamh an Chláir (Memories of Clare) and was also a founding member of the Oral History Network of Ireland. In January 2016 was appointed by UCC as Manager of the Cork Folklore Project. He also runs Mac Conmara Heritage Consulting which has national clients like the Irish Defence Forces, Waterways Ireland, Dublin Port and multiple local authorities. He published his 20-year collection work; The Time of the Tans in 2019, based on his over 400 personal recordings focused on the Irish War of Independence. In 2021, he will publish The Scariff Martyrs, War, Murder and Memory in East Clare.

Archivoz Youtube: 3rd Archivoz Symposium (First Session): Citizens in Archives, 3 November 2021

Vance Woods

Group director for UK & USA at Archivoz

Library Technician 3/Oregon State University