{"id":427,"date":"2014-12-04T09:40:12","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T09:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/?p=427"},"modified":"2014-12-04T11:07:45","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T11:07:45","slug":"connected-collections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/2014\/12\/04\/connected-collections\/","title":{"rendered":"Connected Collections"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018Connected Collections\u2019, Library of Innerpeffray, 29 November 2014<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"WP_20141129_13_18_20_Pro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Last Saturday, I was at the wonderful Library of Innerpeffray<\/a><\/strong>, Scotland\u2019s oldest lending library (founded ca. 1680) for \u2018Connected Collections\u2019, a workshop organised by Jennifer Barnes<\/strong> and Chris Murray<\/strong> of the University of Dundee. This was designed as a forum for academics, archivists, library and museum professionals, and students to discuss the promotion of creative collections at Scottish universities and work towards potential partnerships and research bids.<\/p>\n

\"WP_20141129_13_58_29_Pro\"<\/a><\/p>\n

After my opening talk on \u2018Widening Access to Creative Collections at Edinburgh University\u2019, Neil Curtis <\/strong>(Head of Museums, Aberdeen) gave an historical account of collecting and cataloguing policies over the 18th and 19th centuries noting how changing curatorial approaches repurposed and recombined Aberdeen University\u2019s collections, sometimes creating hybrid objects. He stressed too the role of Scottish universities as combined national institutions, rather than regional entities serving only their immediate area.<\/p>\n

Karl Magee <\/strong>(University Archivist, University of Stirling) introduced the archive of Stirling-born film-maker Norman McLaren and discussed, in particular, the relationship forged between the University Archives and the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum, culminating in the exhibition \u2018A Dream of Stirling: Norman McLaren\u2019s Scottish Dawn\u2019.<\/p>\n

John Izod (<\/strong>Communications, Media and Culture, Stirling University) told the fascinating tale of Lindsay Anderson\u2019s documentary of Wham!\u2019s 1985 China tour, the first visit to that country by a western pop group. Anderson\u2019s radically different first version, rejected by the group\u2019s management, is in Stirling University\u2019s Lindsay Anderson Archive.<\/p>\n

Julie Gardham <\/strong>(Senior Assistant Librarian, Special Collections, University of Glasgow) presented a number of innovative ways of promoting arts and humanities collections, including using archives as inspirational materials for creative writing workshops, pitching under-used and uncatalogued collections at potential researchers at evening receptions, and running a student blogathon, with prizes for the best and most liked posts for items on Special Collections and Archives material.<\/p>\n

Gerard Carruthers<\/strong> (Francis Hutcheson Chair of Scottish Literature, <\/strong><\/strong>University of Glasgow) argued that there was a need for a concerted effort to catalogue and explore 18th<\/sup>– and 19th<\/sup>-century poetry archives in Glasgow and the West of Scotland. This was material that had been neglected due to the prevailing misconception that Scottish poetry had descended into sentimental tartanry after Burns. He wished to see a project \u2018Scottish Political Poetry and Song, 1832-1918\u2019 researching material in newspapers and periodicals to create an alternative print cultural history.<\/p>\n

Caroline Brown <\/strong>(Deputy Archivist, University of Dundee), discussed her university\u2019s promotion of embedded archival teaching, including the award of a prize for the best piece of work using archival materials. She placed particular stress on oral history projects involving Dundee\u2019s jute mills, the publisher D. C. Thomson, and patients and staff at a hospital for people with a learning disability.<\/p>\n

Chris Murray<\/strong> (Dundee) discussed the use of archives in Comics Studies courses at Dundee University. These were largely created through building up close relationships with individual comic artists and publishers, many of whom regularly visited Dundee to give talks to the students. Archival materials were also used to inspire students to create their own comics. Dr Murray noted the difficulty in using some recent materials for teaching and research, due to donators\u2019 concerns that materials might be uploaded to the internet.<\/p>\n

Finally Brian Hoyle<\/strong> (English and Film Studies, Dundee) introduced Dundee University\u2019s recently acquired archive of the Scottish novelist and screenwriter Alan Sharp, and discussed his interest in building an archive of unfilmed cinema scripts (of which there were many first-rate examples in the Sharp Archive).<\/p>\n

The day ended with a round-table discussion which gave student delegates a chance to express their own views on the efforts of libraries, archives, and museums to engage with them. A common theme was a desire for easier and more uniform access to collections in institutions other than the student\u2019s own. Archivists also expressed concerns that universities were no longer training students in the skills required (Latin, palaeography) to decipher archival materials.<\/p>\n

The day provided an excellent opportunity for forging contacts between academics, library and archive professionals, and students working with creative collections. It was also an invaluable platform for library and archives staff to exchange ideas on outreach and widening participation. It is to be hoped that future \u2018Connected Collections\u2019 workshops will be organized to build on the relationships established at Innerpeffray.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Paul Barnaby, Archives Team, CRC<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Connected Collections\u2019, Library of Innerpeffray, 29 November 2014 Last Saturday, I was at the wonderful Library of Innerpeffray, Scotland\u2019s oldest lending library (founded ca. 1680) for \u2018Connected Collections\u2019, a workshop organised by Jennifer Barnes and Chris Murray of the University of Dundee. This was designed as a forum for academics, archivists, library and museum professionals, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":[],"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":433,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/edinburghuniversityarchives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}