The digital world and the future of historical research

Twentieth Century British History

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 396-414

  Hampshire, Edward ^a   Johnson, Valerie ^a  

^a THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 70249146848     PISSN: 09552359     EISSN: 14774674     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/tcbh/hwp036     Document Type: Article

References (49)

1. This article represents the views of the authors and does not represent the policies or views of The National Archives.
2. 'Review of the Thirty Year Rule' (Jan 2009). See http://www.30yearrulereview.org.uk/final-report.htm (p. 13, para. 4.2) [accessed 18 May 2009].
3. See also A. Flinn and H. Jones (eds), Freedom of Information: Open Access, Empty Archives? (London, 2009).
4. See too Michael Moss, 'Where have all the files gone, lost in action points every one?', paper to Records Management Society conference (Apr 2009).
5. See 'Welcome to the RHS Bibliography', http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/ [accessed 5 Jan 2009]
6. British National Bibliography (BNB) Online at http://catalogue.bl.uk/F/ ?func=file&file_name=find-b&local_base=BNB [accessed 20 May 2009].
7. See The Times http://archive.timesonline.co.uk/tol/archive/
8. The Guardian http://archive.guardian.co.uk/Default/Skins/ DigitalArchive/Client.asp?Skin=DigitalArchive &enter=true&AW=1242842654596&AppName=2. The latter site also covers The Observer. [accessed 20 May 2009].
9. Archon, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/archon/[accessed 5 Jan 2009].
10. The National Archives Catalogue: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ catalogue/default.asp?source==ddmenu_search3&j+1
11. The National Archives of Scotland catalogue: http://www.mas.gov.uk/ catalogues/default.asp'
12. Public Record Office of Northern Ireland e-catalogue: http://www.proni.gov.uk/index/search_the_archives/ecatalogue.htm [all accessed 28 Jul 2009].
13. National Register of Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/nra/ [accessed Jan 2009].
14. Archives Hub, http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/
15. Aim 25, http://www.aim25.ac.uk/
16. Archives Network Wales, http://www.archivesnetworkwales.info/ [accessed 5 Jan 2009].
17. Access to Archives, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/ ?source+ddmenu search1
18. Scottish Archive Network, http://www.scan.org.uk
19. Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future, http://www.bl.uk/ news/pdf/googlegen.pdf [accessed 5 Jan 2009].
20. Some parts of this process have become electronic only very recently: Gordon Brown is understood to be the first British prime minister to communicate internally with his private office as a matter of course by email, rather than by hand-written notes and documents as has been traditional for previous prime ministers, including his immediate predecessor (private information).
21. See, for example, Paul N. Courant, 'Scholarship: The Wave of the Future in the Digital Age', http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB7202t.pdf [accessed 9 Jan 2009].
22. See also the comments on the subject on the site of the American Historical Association http://blog.historians.org/profession/536/ links-spaces-and-changing-habits-of-hi [accessed 9 Jan 2009].
23. The 1993 Waldegrave initiative did lead to the transfer and opening of records less than thirty years old, but this was within the framework of the existing legislation and did not give a public right of access to closed records.
24. See the Dacre Report, 'Review of the Thirty Year Rule' (Jan 2009), 39.
25. See http://www.30yearrulereview.org.uk/final-report.htm [accessed 20 May 2009].
26. For example, the recent digitization of the records of the British Cabinet has allowed for both a highly capable full-text search engine in addition to a 'bulk' download of whole pieces (often three months' worth of Cabinet meetings or over fifty Cabinet memoranda) at once, which can then be viewed and browsed in .pdf format. See: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/?source=ddmenu_search6
27. also http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/cabinet-gov/ meetings-papers.htm for the bulk download and browse facility [accessed 28 Jul 2009].
28. The Digitisation of History project at the Centre for History and Economics, Cambridge University is an important exception, encouraging and promoting a debate that was almost totally absent prior to 2007. http://www-histecon.kings.cam.ac.uk/research/digitization/index.html [accessed 5 Jan 09].
29. The National Archives has had trouble encouraging the academic community to engage actively in developments. See notes of 'Research in the digital age' talk given by Natalie Ceeney for the Digitisation of History project at Trinity Hall, Cambridge 28 May 2008 http://www-histecon.kings.cam.ac.uk/research/digitization/ ceeney-080528.html [accessed 5 Jan 2009].
30. One recent article by an historian has highlighted the significance of 'born-digital', and in particular user-generated, content for historians, but the author, like the authors of this article, straddles both the archival and historical worlds: Nick Barratt, 'From memory to digital record: Personal heritage and archive use in the twenty-first century', Records Management Journal, 19, (2009), 8-15.
31. Henry III Fine Rolls Project, http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk [accessed 5 Jan 2009]
32. See for example, the Welsh Seals Project run by Aberystwyth University, at http://www.aber.ac.uk/bhstwww/research/sealspilot.html [accessed 20 May 2009].
33. See Professor Sir Tim Berners Lee on the semantic web, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mVFY52CH6Bc. [accessed 26 Nov 2008].
34. The National Centre for Text Mining (NaCTem) at the University of Manchester is a leader in this field, working to assist the academic community in this area.
35. Elizabeth Hallam and Michael Roper: 'The capital and the records of the nation: Seven centuries of housing the public records in London', London Journal, 4 (1978), 74-9.
36. The earliest example the authors have found is a schedule drawn up for the Admiralty in 1880 (ADM 116/3193),
37. and the largest modern schedule in the UK is believed to be the National Health Service Code of Records Management Parts 1 and 2, http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/ PublicationsPolicyAnd Guidance/Browsable/DH_4133200 [accessed 5 Jan 2009] a monster coming in at 189 pages.
38. Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, Annual Report 2007-08, Annex 2, Table 1, p. 98, http://www.dius.gov.uk/docs/about/ 21076_DIUS%20AR&A_Annexes.pdf [accessed 5 Jan 2009].
39. David Bearman, 'Moments of risk: Identifying threats to electronic records', Archivaria, No. 62 (Fall 2006), 24-5.
40. Domesday Community, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/preservation/ research/domesday.htm [accessed 5 Jan 2009].
41. The National Archives DROID automatic file format identification tool: http://droid.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Introduction [accessed 12 Mar 2009].
42. See project website for details, http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/ specialcollections/collections/specialprojects/cairo/ [accessed 20 May 2009].
43. Bearman, 'Moments of risk', 41.
44. Adrian Cunningham 'Digital curation/digitial archiving: A view from the National Archives of Australia', American Archivist, 71 (Fall/ Winter 2008), 532-3.
45. For the importance of provenance from the historian's viewpoint, see G.R. Elton, The Practice of History (London 1967), 100-1.
46. For the archival opinion, see Hilary Jenkinson, A Manual of Archive Administration (3rd edition, London, 1965), 97 and 101,
47. and Ann Pederson, Keeping Archives (Sydney, 1987), 131-5.
48. John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (3rd edition, Harlow, 1999), 54.
49. The success of archivists in recent years to persuade historians to engage in the problems of record selection has been mixed. Their involvement in The National Archives' Operational Selection Policy public consultations has been minimal, even though policies in the last few years have included such diverse areas as 'Records relating to military law and courts martial' (OSP 47), 'Competition case files 1950-2008' (OSP 43) and 'Government and the People: The interaction of the state with the citizen' (OSP 30). All policies are listed here: Operational Selection Policies by number, http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/recordsmanagement/selection/ ospintro.htm [accessed 5 Jan 2009]. Engaging historians in the consultation for a National Collections Strategy on Business Records was more successful: A post of Business Records Development Officer (BRDO) was set up by a coalition of archivists and historians, with support from The National Archives, Cymal and the Society of Archivists as well as the Business Archives Council (many of whose members are historians), the Economic History Society and the Association of Business Historians. These groups together paid the salary of the BRDO and sat on a panel which was set up to oversee the work of the BRDO and the development by that officer of a business records strategy.