US National Archives – YouTube

I am a big fan of the US National Archives website and came across their YouTube channel where they have uploaded a number of interesting films and lectures. The National Archives in the UK has also developed a channel on YouTube.

The interesting video below is of a talk given by the former researcher and current US National Archives employee Miriam Kleiman, who uncovered documents at the National Archives that helped shatter Switzerland’s neutrality myth, and exposed Swiss culpability in hiding Jewish assets stolen by the Nazis during World War II.

http://www.youtube.com/user/usnationalarchives#p/c/0BF9FC98E270FB32/0/_2TMEF3jHMs

Storage problems with State papers

An article in today’s Irish Times by Fiona Gartland outlines the continuing lack of adequate storage space in the National Archives of Ireland and the government’s ’sure it will be all right attitude’ towards this.

‘MANY STATE papers due to become available to the public yesterday will not be accessible because of storage problems at the National Archives.

The building, on Bishop Street in Dublin, is critically short of storage space for its records and over 100,000 boxes of important documents are stored in a warehouse with no environmental control’

Archivist of the United States

David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States, gave his “State of the Archives” address on 3 December 2009. He quotes from Robert Digges Wimberly Connor, the first US Archivist in 1934, who wrote about the state of the official records of that country.

‘…45.0 per cent of the total are infested with silverfish, cockroaches, and other insects, rats, mice, and other vermin, and exposed to such hazards as dirt, rain, sunlight, theft, and fire. More than…46.0 per cent of the total were in depositories that were dark, dirty, badly ventilated, crowded, and without facilities for work.

Digital Preservation Roadshow, Dublin, November 2009

Last Thursday, I attended the Digital Preservation Roadshow held out in University College Dublin. These are being run by the Society of Archivists in partnership with the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), The National Archives, The National Archives of Scotland, The National Archives of Ireland, the Planets project, the Records Management Society and Cymal. The aim was to raise awareness of digital preservation tools and techniques.

The day consisted of a series of talks and discussions:

• Introduction to Digital Preservation (Tim Gollins, Head of Digital Preservation, The National Archives, UK)
• Introducing the DPC (William Kilbride, DPC Executive Director)
• Case study: Public Record Office Northern Ireland (Hugh Campbell, PRONI)
• Case study: Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive (Antoinette Doran, Metadata Librarian and James Kirwan, Digitisation Assistant, University College Dublin)
• Case study: (Alex Eveleigh, Collections Manager, West Yorkshire Archive Services)
• Tools: Introduction to the Planets project (Clive Billenness, Programme Manager, Planets Project)

Finally, we had a discussion chaired by William Kilbride, DPC, on issues such as preservation policies, compression, capacity of storage and simple steps to start digital preservation. The day was very informative, a lot was over my head, but I learnt a few things:

• digital preservation is nothing to be afraid of
• by backing up to your server (removable devices are discouraged) you are digital preserving
• there are free preservation tools out there such as Droid 5.0 and Plato

Floods at Glucksman Gallery, UCC

‘Clean-up begins at prestigious art gallery’

184 pieces of works in the Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork, including pieces by O’Donoghue, Le Brocquy, and Gale were damaged by floods. The artworks were stored in the basement, adjacent to the River Lee. The release of water from the Inniscarra Dam as well as heavy rainfall, resulted in the worst flooding in living memory in Cork. The speed of the flooding made the warnings of water ingress to the building ineffectual. The Gallery has implemented its disaster management plan and hopefully with the speed of the gallery’s response, all works can be restored.

What lessons can be learnt from this flooding?  Firstly, implement a flooding plan for the Cork area and secondly, reassess the location of storage of artworks, especially along a river. The building has won many awards including ‘One of the 1001 Buildings you must see before you die’ however did the builders assess the possibility of flooding when locating storage in the basement?

An interview with Fiona Kearney, Director, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, University College Cork on Radio RTE One was aired today.

Up Cork Archives & IMMA

Two articles from Saturday’s Irish Times caught my eye. Firstly, on page 2 of the main paper, Mary Leland described plans for the handing over of the family archive of the Blarney Castle estate in Cork to the Cork City and County Archive Centre, ‘The collection is described by archivist Brian McGee as the most important collection of landed estate papers to be acquired by the centre. It is a substantial grouping of very high quality material which will be of great interest, and we are also delighted that it was given to us freely and whole-heartedly.’

Secondly, on page one of the Weekend Review, a notice indicated that a ‘Public Forum on Amalgamation‘ initiated by the Irish Museum of Modern Art will take place on Wednesday, 18 November 2009. This will discuss the amalgamation of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Ireland and the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork. This forum is to be encouraged and praised. When and where is the public forum on the merger of the National Archives of Ireland, the Irish Manuscripts Commission into the National Library of Ireland?

Merger of National Archives of Ireland: Update

Last Wednesday, 21 October 2009, the issue of the merger of the National Archives and the Irish Manuscripts Commission into the National Library was briefly discussed in the Dail. John O’ Mahony , Mary Upton and Olivia Mitchell asked questions of Martin Mansergh, relating to the merger on issues such as time-frames, staffing, costs, locations etc… No concrete information was forthcoming. This is not surprising. Link

Deputy Olivia Mitchell: I am not questioning the quality of the work being done, which I agree is incredible given the conditions in which staff are working. I accept that the Minister of State is not responsible for bringing forward legislation in the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, but will he convey to the Minister the degree of urgency attaching to this issue?

Deputy Martin Mansergh: The policy decision is made by the Department concerned – in most of the cases we are discussing it is the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism – after which the Office of Public Works comes into play in terms of finding solutions, particularly space solutions and so on. A considerable amount of work has been done in the background in the past two or three years. The main issue, as with everything else, is funding.

National Library of Ireland – Sources & Mergers

The National Library of Ireland has launched a new database, SOURCES, which they say ‘will revolutionise the finding of source material for Irish research… contains over 180,000 catalogue records for Irish manuscripts, and for articles in Irish periodicals.’ Revolutionise is a strong word to use however it is interesting to see the use of XML (Extensible Markup Language), Metadata Object Description Schema (MODS) and open source software in this project

The job specification for Director of the National Library of Ireland has been brought to my attention. It mentions that one of the duties of the new Director will be ‘Planning, managing and organising the merger of the Irish Manuscripts Commission and the National Archives of Ireland into the National Library’. In the 2009 Budget delivered by the Minister for Finance on 15 October 2008, it was announced that the Irish Manuscripts Commission and the National Archives of Ireland would be merged into the National Library of Ireland. What effect will this merger have on the archivists, record mangers, conservators and librarians of Ireland? What effect will this merger have on keeping records in Ireland?