http://vision.port.ac.uk/

A vision of Britain between 1801 and 2001.
Including maps, statistical trends and historical descriptions.

The resolution of the maps isn't sufficient!

(Ads by Google ...)

"Some scholars of early Mormon history have begun a letter-writing campaign in hopes of preserving the job of an archivist who works for the Community of Christ, an Independence, Mo.-based church.
Ron Romig, 60, has worked as the lead archivist for the church since 1988. He said he was told June 15 that his position - and those of other church employees - were being cut for budgetary reasons.
Scholars say Romig is an invaluable resource who has helped dozens of historians complete research and books related to the early Mormon church and the distinct religious movements that sprang from Mormonism after the death of church founder Joseph Smith.
"It's amazing how many times I pick up a new book on Mormon history, and when you look at the list of people who have helped (the author), there's Ron Romig's name," said Bill Russell, an emeritus professor of American history and government at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa.
Russell, a member of the Community of Christ, said he recognizes the economic reality of the times, but fears church leaders don't "understand the value of an archivist." .....
"Romig is, over the last 20 years, the person most responsible for creating a cross culture of history, moving beyond just LDS or Community of Christ history into a larger concept of Mormon history," said Melvin C. Johnson, a professor of history and English at Angelina College in Lufkin, Texas. "He has been really important in cutting down a lot of the angst, anger and religious one-upsmanship."
So far, Community of Christ president Steve Veazey has received 18 letters written on Romig's behalf, church spokeswoman Kendra Friend said. .....
Romig is scheduled to leave his job at the end of August. He said the church has been gracious in allowing him some time to try and secure a new position......."
Link

"National Archives visitors know they'll find the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the main building's magnificent rotunda in Washington. But they won't find the patent file for the Wright Brothers' Flying Machine or the maps for the first atomic bomb missions anywhere in the Archives inventory.
Many historical items the Archives once possessed are missing, including:
_Civil War telegrams from Abraham Lincoln.
_Original signatures of Andrew Jackson.
_Presidential portraits of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
_NASA photographs from space and on the moon.
_Presidential pardons.
Some were stolen by researchers or Archives employees. Others simply disappeared without a trace. And there's more gone from the nation's record keeper......
"We do not have item-by-item control," said Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper. "We can't. We have 9 billion documents. We don't know exactly what's in each of those boxes. There's no point in preserving materials that cannot be used."
Each missing historical item has its own story.
_From 1969 to 1980, the patent file for the Wright Brothers Flyer was passed around multiple Archives offices, the Patents and Trademarks Office and the National Air and Space Museum. It was returned to the Archives in 1979, and was last seen in 1980.
_In 1962, military representatives checked out the target maps for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The maps have been missing ever since.
_In May 2004, one of FDR's grandsons asked to see a portrait of his grandfather at the Roosevelt presidential library in Hyde Park, N.Y. It couldn't be found, and hasn't been seen since 2001.
_Shaun Aubitz, a former employee at the Archives' facility in Philadelphia, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 21 months in prison in 2002 for stealing - among other items - 71 pardons signed by Presidents James Madison, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes and Lincoln. The Archives recovered 59 of the records that had been sold to manuscript dealers and collectors.
_In 2005, researcher Howard Harner was sentenced to two years in prison, two years probation, and a $10,000 fine after pleading guilty to stealing more than 100 Civil War-era documents from the Archives between 1996 and 2002. Fewer than half were recovered.
_A 40-year-old National Archives intern in Philadelphia stole 160 Civil War documents. About half were sold on eBay. The documents included telegrams about the troops' weaponry, the War Department's announcement of Lincoln's death sent to soldiers, and a letter from famed Confederate cavalryman James Ewell Brown Stuart.
A financially strapped Denning McTague was sentenced in the case to 15 months in prison in 2007. He had told a psychiatrist that he was angry that his internship was unpaid.
___
On the Web:
List of missing items: http://www.archives.gov/research/recover/missing-documents.html
Archives home page: http://www.archives.gov

Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090704/ap_on_go_ot/us_archives_missing_history

Some archivists chose for their holiday destination this year the city of Cologne. This was not to visit the Kölner Dom, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but to lend a strong hand to help our colleagues at the Municipal archives affected by disaster.

The Association of National Committees of the Blue Shield (ANCBS) is now putting together a second team of 70 to 75 volunteers who will be deployed from the 3rd to the 8th of August. The first mission was an opportunity for the volunteers to treat around two linear kilometers of documents in four days. David Leitch, our Secretary General, visited the site to meet the volunteers and witness their good work.

On the 15th of June, the Archives of Cologne estimated to have benefited from around 9000 hours of volunteer activity in total.

The recovery work is being tackled little by little until it is finished. There are still a few places left. If you would like to participate in this mission, please write to Christophe Jacobs, Project Officer for “Emergency Management”: jacobs(AT)ica.org.

http://www.ica.org/en/2009/07/03/when-holidays-chime-solidarity-second-volunteer-mission-cologne

(c) Robert Kretzschmar

http://www.flickr.com/groups/archivist/

http://airminded.org/2009/07/01/the-best-things-in-life-were-free/

The Royal Historical Society has for some years maintained an online bibliography of British and Irish history, updated three times a year. It currently has over 460,000 records. It’s a fantastic resource for scholars interested in any aspect of the history of the British Isles, not least because it’s free. But from 1 January 2010 it won’t be: it will be rebranded as the Bibliography of British and Irish History which will be sold by Brepols, with subscriptions available for institutions and individuals.

This is a shame, of course. A resource which was freely available to anyone with an internet connection will now only be open to those who can afford to pay.

http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/

UK Forum for Archives and Records Management Education and Research (FARMER)

In association with

Network of Archival Educators and Trainers (North Western Europe)

(NAET)

"Questions of trust? Archives, records and identities"

An international conference, Wolfson College, Oxford, UK

July 5-6th 2010

Call for Papers

As we enter the second decade of the 21st century, the digital world is ever more the place in which many of our lives are lived and recorded. The transition to this new world and new way of working has brought many new questions for all those interested in archives and records, as well as reformulating and suggesting re-imagining many traditional ones. Chief amongst these questions are those which relate to trust (of records, of governments and organisations, of systems) and to identity/identities and the way in which archives and records might support the construction, articulation and demonstration of those identities. In recent years there has been a growing recognition of the political nature of archives and records, and of archives and records management. Questions of trust and identity sit at the heart of these political concerns and processes. This conference will consider the implications of these questions for professional education, research and practice.

The conference will bring together an international group of those active in archives and records management education and research, as well as interested practitioners. Moreover the conference sets out to be actively transdisciplinary in its outlook and will encourage contributions from many related and relevant disciplines including library and information science, museology, cultural heritage, history, anthropology, public policy and governance, business management, information systems development and design, etc.

Conference Themes

Amongst the themes contributors might wish to consider are:

· Can records and archives be trusted? What might ‘trust’ mean in this context? Are there archives, information and records management systems which can ensure the ‘trustworthiness’ of archives and records? How does trust relate to authenticity, integrity, completeness or other (supposed) qualities of archives and records?

· Does (or how might) access to archives and records, particularly in a digital world, support levels of trust in governments, commercial organisations, communities, etc?

· Are the present crises of confidence and public trust in major governmental and financial institutions mitigated or made worse by legislation specifying public access to information?

· Many claims are made about the different ways in which communities and shared identifications are constructed around (upon) histories, heritages and archives. How are these identities constructed and shared and how do these processes engage with records, archives, and other heritage materials? What role is played in the construction of collective and community memories by the question of ‘trust’ in these heritage materials, and in the authority of those who hold them?

· What are the implications, including questions of trust and identity for virtual communities forming around, sharing and engaging with heritage materials online when social and participatory technologies are used?

· What does the concept of identity mean within digital and virtual environments? What are the implications for the security and trustworthiness of records in this context?

Papers and session proposals:

The organisers hope that many of the papers from the conference will be published in an international journal and are in negotiation with publishers and editors about this. Further details will follow in due course. The language of the conference will be English.

The conference organisers encourage proposals for individual papers as well as for panels. Paper submissions should include a short abstract (300-500 words) plus a brief CV and contact details for the proposer. Panel submissions (maximum of 3 speakers plus chair) should include a brief overview of the theme of the panel, short abstracts (300-500 words) for each of the proposed papers, and a brief CV and contact details for each of the chair and panel members.

A conference website will established shortly but meanwhile further information can be found at https://www.ucl.ac.uk/infostudies/research/icarus/farmerconference2010/

Important dates:

Please submit individual paper or panel proposals via email (with ‘FARMER Conference Proposal’ in the subject line) by 30 September 2009 to a.flinn@ucl.ac.uk. Proposals will reviewed by the organising committee with final decisions being made before the end of the year.

In order to better facilitate discussion and exchange at the conference, papers will be made available to delegates in advance. Participants will therefore be asked to agree to submit a full version of their paper by 31 May 2010.

"When the rumor concerning Michael Jackson’s tragic death became fact, I raced to the Starbucks
on the corner of 7th and E, Northwest, in downtown Washington, D.C.
It was as close as I could get to the site of the clothing store (the name of which I cannot remember) where,
in the late Spring of 1971, the tailor measuring the suit I would wear to my 9th grade graduation, would sing, and sing,
and sing the opening lines from the Jackson 5’s hit single “Never Can Say Goodbye.”
The tailor alternately crooned and chanted those four words-pausing only to ask if I was okay with
the length of the slacks.
I simply nodded.
In part because the suit idea wasn’t mine to begin with, and because I shared his love for
that aching, arresting love song, and wanted to return to that space.
I had him adjust the cuff length four times before my Mother gave a look which said “Let’s go!”
Today I could not tell you what that suit looked like if my life depended on it.
But I remember the exact site of the clothing store.
A glitzy art gallery stands in its place.
The 7th Street of my youth, adolescence and early adulthood was as different a place
as photos of the pre and post teenage Michael Jackson.
I was so overcome with emotion, I was sorely tempted to tell the otherwise bored barista about my experience.
I’d say she was in her early ‘20’s-which probably meant she was more familiar with Michael Jackson the tabloid star
than the vocalist whose sound is as much a part of me as shyness, so I held back..
I can’t even remember what I ordered.
I do know that I stood in front of that gallery, lost in a 38 year-old memory.
I held the cup like the girl I dreamed of dancing with each time that sweet song played."
Reuben Jackson is a poet and associate curator in the Archives Center at the National Museum of American History.
Link
http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/osaycanyousee/2009/06/never-can-say-goodbye.html