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Archives Outside

For people who love, use and manage archives

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

Director, Alan Ventress, discusses the disappearing skill of reading handwriting

Some of you may be aware that the Director of State Records NSW, Alan Ventress, has been in the media this week discussing the subject of the disappearing skill of reading handwriting.

It all started with a letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday.

You wouldn’t read about it – they can’t

Not only can’t the under-30s write running writing, the number who can’t read it is growing exponentially (Letters, February 6).

Here at State Records NSW we have about 8 million individual items in the state’s archives, many of which were written in cursive script in the 18th and 19th centuries.

This was followed by three responses published yesterday.

History of literacy turns another page

Alan Ventress states that ”unless it is written in 12-point Times New Roman, younger users of the archives are unable to research Australian history” (Letters, February 7). That is patently untrue – they are also fluent in Arial, Comic Sans and, of course, txt.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/letters/rudd-will-just-bring-forward-the-demise-of-labor-20120207-1r5qa.html#ixzz1lpcYVKda

It remained a popular topic for letters again today.

In 13 years of schooling, Terry Funnell’s law student (Letters, February 8) had studied global warming but not cursive writing. I hope they taught him to swim.

 

At lunch time yesterday Alan Ventress was interviewed on the subject by James Valentine on Radio Station ABC 702 Sydney.

We spoke to Alan Ventress from the State Records about how people are struggling to read the old handwriting in the records and also took your calls on how the art of reading and indeed writing “running writing” is diminishing.

Listen to the Podcast

Long time readers of Archives Outside will also know that deciphering handwriting is a subject near and dear to our hearts.  With your help we successfully crowdsourced a page with some handy tips and tricks.

Digital archaeology and the temporary nature of technology

This post is brought to you via State Records newest Board Member Stephen Choularton Ph.D., FIoD who recommended this podcast on the Radio National site! It’s a fascinating introductory look at the world of digital archaeology, touching on several issues that are central to the mission of Archives.

Profitable digital content: It's all about the value

 

As our fast paced digital world continues what does that mean for the way we think about preserving things like old webpages and obsolete media formats? Are there possible lessons from our digital past for our digital future? We explore the fragility of our electronic data and also the temporary nature of the technology we use to access it. We also join the excavation of a 1970s computer chip called the 6502!

Listen to the Podcast.

 

ETA: Podcast link updated 23/02/12

Have you got photos of our archives that you’d like to share?

Have you visited our reading rooms to view original NSW State archives? Did you take photos of the records? Add your photos of documents from the official NSW State archives collection to our new Flickr Group called Archives2Share NSW.

We’re trying a crowdsourcing  experiment, tell your friends!

The idea of this new Flickr group is to help make the State’s archives more accessible. Our aim is to make your Flickr images (of our archives) available through our new, experimental catalogue search tool. So when you search for a record series or item using the search tool then a relevant image from Flickr will be visible.

Example from the catalogue

Here is an example showing the front and back of a railway history card (see the Flickr images at the bottom of the screenshot)

Example from the Flickr group

Here are some items that Fiona and I have added to the Flickr group as examples. Notice there are a couple of photos in included that aren’t yet available in Photo Investigator – these are worthy candidates for the Flickr group.

Sound interesting?

In order to make this connection between Flickr and our search tool, we first need to find the relevant series or item in our catalogue to which the image belongs (more than likely you will have all this information on your retrieval slip).

Upload to the new Flickr group – Archives2Share – it’s not as complicated as it sounds

If you upload an image to this group, please add these special machine tags (add machine tags in the same way as ‘normal’ tags):

1. srnsw:series=[series number]

example: srnsw:series=12345
– this number is on your retrieval slip

and/or

2. srnsw:item=[item number]

example: srnsw:item=479518
– this number is obtained from the catalogue search result and not the retrieval slip. It is the number at the end of the item’s URL e.g. api.records.nsw.gov.au/items/479518

Tag your images

Please add other relevant tags as you see fit and we will also add these to our catalogue. For example, keywords like “probate”, “shipping list”, “map”, or the names of people and places will help make these images more accessible to others. If you are feeling brave, you might try adding extra machine tags (www.flickr.com/help/tags) e.g. to specify geographical coordinates or to link to a person in Trove.

We are also using a special “archives2share” tag to keep track of our progress.

But I don’t have a Flickr account and I really want to share…

Not a problem. Flickr accounts are free and you can join in a matter of minutes. Then simply upload your images to your account, tag them and add them to the Flickr group.

If you don’t wish to get a Flickr account, you can upload your images via our contact form here on the blog (note: you can only add one image at a time).

Acceptable items to add

There is a general 30 year closure period for all records. Due to the sensitive information contained in some series of records the closure period is longer. Basically, if you view the archive in the reading room (without needing a letter of permission granting you special access) then you can add it to the group.

Feedback

This is a new area for us and we hope to share our progress with you in the Discussions area of the Flickr group. We also look forward to your suggestions and feedback.

Happy Summer Hiatus Post! (with added bonus feature “Find The Stror ‘At Coot” )

Christmas bush

It’s hard to believe it’s that time of year already! Here at Archives Outside we would like to say thanks to everyone who has contributed, commented  and read the blog over the past year and wish you all the best for 2012. The blog will be going on a summer hiatus until Monday 30th of January when we will start-up again with a Moments in Time post.  However, our photographic fans should fear not.  While Can you date this photograph? [Clovelly Beach] was our last formal photo post for the year we are leaving you with a puzzle for the lazy summer days to come.

Joy, luck and love

Anthea, Anna & Fiona
(The Archives Outside team)

 

Can you find “The Stror ‘At Coot”?

By Jenny Sloggett

With apologies to CJ Dennis.

The Kid is looking for the Straw Hat Coot who has been dodging round Doreen; that ‘knock-kneed coot … Wiv ’is cute stror ’at an’ pretty ways!’ forever talking about ‘The Hoffis’. We think we’ve seen him lounging around in The Rocks, but not only there.

Sydney Observatory

The Rocks, Sydney

Can you help the kid? Is the Straw Hat Coot lurking elsewhere in State Records NSW’s photostream?

What you have been looking at in 2011?

I was looking through some of our blog stats the other week and thought I’d share some of them; a Top 10 of Archives Outside, if you like. These stats show what has been the most viewed, the most searched for items and a little bit about you.

Not surprisingly posts/pages/searches relating to Underbelly: Razor featured quite high. What is surprising is the sustained interest in our pages/posts relating to Tilly Devine and co.

What have you been looking at?

  1. Did you watch #Underbelly #Razor last night? Check out some real life mugshots of the razor gangs
  2. Archives Outside homepage
  3. Collections in NSW – view posts in this Category
  4. What are your tips for dating photos?
  5. Take a walk through the streets of Sydney during #underbelly #razor
  6. Conservation Tip 5: removing mould from records and archives
  7. Moments in Time – tag
  8. Can you date this photo [unidentified coastal residential landscape]?
  9. Regional Archives Centres – view page
  10. Archives Made Easy – view posts in this Category.

Top Moments in Time [can you date this photo?]

  1. By leaps and bounds the most popular Moment in Time was the view of an unidentified residential landscape. It didn’t take you long to determine it was Newcastle looking towards Flagstaff Hill and Newcastle Beach (could have been the virtual chocolates) but it still had the most views and comments all year.View of an unidentified coastal residential landscape - a Signal Station can been seen in the far distance (Digital ID: 4481_a026_000986)
  2. The roadworks on a Sydney street asked three questions: what street is it, what time period is it, and for what purpose is the work being done. It was impressively narrowed down to the exact date: King Street, 4 April 1900 during the plague cleanup.
  3. Lands Department Building, Sydney
  4. Bronte Beach, Sydney
  5. Wedding Procession, Comboyne District
  6. Hyde Park, Sydney
  7. Bondi Beach, Sydney
  8. Circular Quay, Sydney
  9. Hamilton Railway Station
  10. Wagga Wagga Council Chambers.

How did you get here?

Sifting past the Underbelly: Razor searches and the term “Archives Outside” the most keywords that got you to the blog were:

  1. Wayne Doubleday regional repository
  2. Captain Moonlight
  3. Social Media Strategy
  4. How to remove blood from paper
  5. Map of NSW/NSW Maps online
  6. WANS
  7. University of Wollongong
  8. UNERA
  9. Crowdsourcing archives
  10. Ralph Snowball.

And lastly…are you local?

Visitors came from far and wide with the majority from Australia:

  1. Australia – 73.80%
  2. United States – 9.15%
  3. United Kingdom – 3.14%
  4. Other countries:  Singapore; Canada; New Zealand; France; Netherlands; Germany; Philippines.

Here’s to a bigger and better year next year! What have your highlights been here on the blog? We’d love to know.