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E-ARMMS Newsletter 7
September 2011
A monthly newsletter from Archive, Records Management and Museum Services (ARMMS) and the Centre for Archive and Information Studies (CAIS) at the University of Dundee.
In this edition:
- International Word & Image Conference
- Museum Services support for Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD)
- Welcome Week tours and others
- Age of Revolution
- Archive skills and sources class
- Abertay Historical Society
- CAIS accreditation
- CAIS study school
- New accessions
- Archive preservation survey
- Archives and Records Association UK and Ireland Conference
- Doors Open Day
- Historical workshop
- The Michael Peto Collection
- Doctoral award: Alliance Trust
1. International Word & Image Conference
Museum curator Matthew Jarron was a major contributor to the winning bid by the Scottish Word & Image Group (SWIG) to host the next major conference of IAWIS, the International Association of Word & Image Studies, at the University of Dundee in 2014. Previous conferences have been held in Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Montreal and attracted hundreds of delegates worldwide. The SWIG team put in a bid inspired by D'Arcy Thompson entitled Riddles of Form: Science & Exploration in Word & Image.
2. Museum Services support for Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD)
One of the first exercises that first year Art & Design students do is a big still life set-up involving numerous artefacts from the museum collections. Matthew will also be giving a lecture to all first year Art & Design students about the collections as well as a talk on D'Arcy Thompson to second year Design & Craft students and tours of the Zoology Museum and Hawkhill House. D'Arcy's collection will also feature in a new Art & Science module run by Paul Harrison from DJCAD in association with Life Sciences.
3. Welcome Week tours and others
Matthew has undertaken tours of the campus and Hawkhill House and an open afternoon in the Zoology Museum, all as part of the Welcome Week programme for new students. Meanwhile, at the Tayside Medical History Museum, Matthew and honorary medical curator Dr Graham Lowe have conducted tours for members of MENSA Scotland and the Coldside Library Local History Group.
4. Age of Revolution
On 12th September over 260 students attended the first lecture of the University's level one history module, The Age of Revolution 1750-1850. The module makes much use of materials held by Archive Services and part of the students' assessed work is a primary source exercise. This was devised by Kenneth, who tutors on the module, and requires the students to evaluate a range of primary sources from our collections. This is the fourth year the module has featured such an exercise. Caroline attended the opening lecture to introduce the students to the archives.
5. Archive skills and sources class
As well as speaking to the first year students Caroline has also given a class to History postgraduates on archive skills and sources. The class discussed the reasons for keeping archives, other than historical reasons we talked about accountability, memory and identity. We also spoke about the power of forgetting the responsibilities archivists have. The students looked at a range of archival material, researched its origins and the context of the collection then discussed the value of the items for a variety of research. Finally we looked at online portals and catalogues.
6. Abertay Historical Society
The Abertay Historical Society held the opening meeting of its 65th session on 14th September. Matthew is secretary of the society, while Kenneth is a member of its council. The Society was founded at University College, Dundee in 1947 and its records are held by Archive Services. More information can be found at its recently redesigned website http://www.abertay.org.uk.
7. CAIS accreditation
CAIS is delighted to announce that it has recently received professional accreditation for its Masters programmes and individual short courses by The Records and Information Management (RIM) Professionals, Australia for a period of 5 years. Further information is available at www.dundee.ac.uk/cais.
8. CAIS Study School
From the 6th-10th September CAIS held a Study School for 33 new distance-learning students. Student attended sessions which included Archive, Theory and Management, Electronic Records Management and Digital Preservation, Ethics and Palaeography, Diplomatic and Family and Local History. A session on Career Routes was held by Patti Harper, from Carleton University, Ottawa and representatives of the Archives and Records Association, UK and Ireland. CAIS now has over 180 continuing Masters students from the UK, Europe and other areas of the world.
9. New accessions
Archive Services has received five logbooks relating to the Dundee based ships Active and Queen Bess, with details of voyages to Hudson Bay just over a century ago. The primary purpose of these ships was collecting the mineral Mica, and to this end a large number of 'natives' - possibly Inuit - were employed. One of the volumes contains an account of one such native Canadian called 'Poodles' who wanted to shoot a polar bear. He managed to enter a bear's cave while it was out hunting and built up a small barrier of snow at the entrance. Apparently this enraged the bear when it returned and as it was trying to break down the barrier Poodles was able to ambush the creature.
10. Archive preservation survey
Archive Services are currently undertaking a preservation survey of its holdings to provide an overview of preservation needs and priorities within the department. So far 336 items have been surveyed with a further 64 identified for study. Once completed, collated data from the survey findings will then be inputted into a database which will be analysed by the Preservation Advisory Centre. The Advisory Centre will flag up any areas where preservation action needs to be focused.
11. Archives and Records Association UK and Ireland Conference
ARMMS and CAIS staff attended the successful annual conference of the Archives and Records Association UK and Ireland. The conference theme was Advocating for Archives and Records: The Impact of the Profession in the 21st Century. Pat spoke in a session with Jan Merchant, Perth & Kinross Archives and Rachel Hosker, Border Archives, on Archives and Communities. All the papers and workshops were very interesting and the conference was very successful. Caroline, was Chair of the UK Organising Committee.
12. Doors Open Day
On Saturday 17 September the University Archives will be open for Doors Open Day from 10.30-11.30am. Visitors can see the treasures of the University Archives and have a tour behind the scenes.
13. Historical workshop
On Saturday 10 September Pat spoke at a historical workshop in Ballachulish on the development of medical services in the Highlands in the nineteenth century. Other speakers included Ewen Cameron from Edinburgh University and Anne Marie Tindley, the organiser of the event, from Glasgow Caledonian University.
14. The Michael Peto Collection
On Monday 12 September Pat met and interviewed Colin Jones, a well-known photographer who worked with Michael Peto. Colin, a former ballet dancer, toured with The Who in 1966, and has worked in many countries including the Philippines and Russia. He uses similar techniques to that of Michael Peto.
The Peto exhibition of Beatles photographs 'The Beatles: Revolutionary 1965' at Proud Camden continues till October 2nd. Prints have been purchased by a number of well-known individuals, including Simon Pegg and Damon Albarn. More information can be seen at http://www.proud.co.uk/exhibition-The-Beatles-Revolutionary-1965-by-Michael-Peto_77.aspx
15. Doctoral award: Alliance Trust
CAIS has been awarded a doctoral award by leading Dundee company The Alliance Trust. The annual funding will enable research to be carried out on an aspect of business history and archives.
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