Archives Outside

For people who love, use and manage archives

Archives Outside - For people who love, use and manage archives

The criminal underworld of Sydney in the 1840s [video]

william-augustus-miles

Scandals, Crime and Corruption: History Week 2009 will be a wild journey through the dark shadows of our past. Discover the scandals, crime and corruption that have shocked us over time and shaped our history, sometimes in unexpected ways.

In keeping with this criminal theme we have put together this entertaining video Registry of Flash Men. It is a unique insight into the criminal underworld in Sydney during the 1840s.

The video features extracts from the journal Registry of Flash Men narrated by its writer ‘William Augustus Miles’ (aka Fabian LoSchiavo)

The journal was an official surveillance record by William Augustus Miles who was Superintendent, then Commissioner, of Sydney Police in New South Wales from July 1840 to July 1848. Miles held the belief that much crime was caused by the contamination of innocent people, and that most of the crime in Sydney was the result of former convicts mixing with free immigrants. He believed that the criminal class required constant surveillance by the police.

Friday poll – your social media platform of choice

I’ve just installed this WordPress survey plugin from Memedex and thought the best way to test it out was to create a poll for you!

It’s a simple one question poll and should only take about 3 seconds of your time.  Click an option then “Vote” and view the poll results.

[memedex:pollid#490152]

The text on the poll seems quite small, doesn’t it?  And the little avatar is kinda creepy. I will most likely move these snap polls to the sidebar in future and include more meaningful surveys in posts.

What’s my fave?

As for me: my current favourite social media platform is Twitter. I recently set up a State Records account and find it quick, easy and fun to use.

Still new to the tweetosphere, my tweets are mostly about new additions to the State Records website, tips from this blog and the Future Proof website with a link to the relevant webpage. Twitter allows updates using only 140 characters. Long urls take up too many characters so I use Tweetburner to generate a short url, or twurl.

twitter

So what’s your fave?

We’d love you to take part in the poll. If you have an “archives” account on any of these social media websites please let us know in the comments. If you are using something else which you find useful please let us know.

By the way, if you come across this poll and it’s not a Friday you can still fill it in!

NSW Maps Online

There are fantastic resources available online for users and lovers of all things cartographic. The Parish Map Preservation Project was commenced in 1997 and aimed to digitise the over 35,000 maps, recording land administration in New South Wales since 1792. These maps are now publically viewable through the Department of Lands website.