Hello
If there are any Archives MA students out there looking for dissertation
topics, here are some suggestions for starting points. If you are
interested, just go ahead and use them - but I'd like to see what you come
up with!
* Some repositories are alarmed by falling visitor numbers. But this might
not take into consideration how queries are answered by the repository's
website, or by a National Archives Network website - virtual visitors.
* Without intending to cause offence, here's an analogy with tourism.
Repositories seem to see themselves as tourist destinations. But shouldn't
they see themselves more as tourist information centres?
* Rules for creating titles of finding aids. Now that the National Archives
Network is brining together a very large number of finding aids from many
and varied repositories, there is potential for confusion when it comes to
titles which make perfect sense in the context of the individual
repositories that created them - but a search across multiple repositories
on the web may produce many similar (or even identical) titles in the
results. Is it worth developing a set of naming conventions? And is there a
way to sort and display titles alphabetically? Especially as their
meaningful content is often obscured by house-keeping information.
* Archives and the environment. How 'green' is your repository? For example,
what is the environmental impact of BS 5454?
* Experimental archives science. You see lots of experimental archaeology on
TV. What might the archival equivalent be? How would you devise a test for
an archival theory? Does writing an archival description involve making and
testing theories about how and why the original material was created and
used? Can you test an archival description by 're-animating' the original
material in some way?
* Forensic document science. I don't know anything about this, or even what
it's actually called, but there must be people who investigate the
provenance, authenticity, or physical characteristics of documents for
criminal investigations.
Have fun,
Paddy
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Paddy Collis
Archives Hub Data Editor
MIMAS, Manchester Computing,
The University Of Manchester,
Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.
Tel: 0161 275 6077
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
Web: http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk
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