Further to previous postings on Ruskin College ... and with apologies
for cross posting.
Regards
Ruth
-----Original Message-----
From: Archivists, conservators and records managers.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Carl Boardman
Sent: 17 October 2012 09:45
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Ruskin Archives
Just to pick up on something in Denise Pakeman's article:
"Research has shown that items listed on the national register of
archives as existing at Ruskin are no longer there. Some have been
traced to the Oxfordshire Records. "
Leaving on one side the point that anyone tracing these items ought to
have noticed that they're at Oxfordshire History Centre, not some
mythical place called Oxfordshire Records, we seem to be getting some
confusion between the actual records of Ruskin College as an
instituition and the archives of other institutions which have been
deposited with them. There is a tendency among many individuals and
organizations to believe that placing their papers with a university or
college gives them some form of academic kudos which would not be the
case if they were deposited in a common or garden record office. While
some academic institutions do have the facilities, both in terms of
storage and of staff, to look after archives, plenty do not; Ruskin was
well aware of its problems in this regard and sensibly used the move to
a new site to investigate the best way forward. This involved the
transfer to Oxfordshire History Centre of collections from Oxfordshire
institutions which had been deposited with the college, but which Ruskin
felt it did not have the facilities to look after as they deserved. The
suggestion that relinquishing these collections was some form of
betrayal of history could not be further from the truth; the move of the
collections was to ensure their survival for the future. The NRA
records are in the process of being updated.
The records of the college itself are, of course, another matter.
Various assertions are being flung around from all sides, but very
little actual evidence seems to be available either way. Nevertheless
there is a broader issue here: many of the assertions about what is
happening at Ruskin suggest that material is being destroyed because the
space is needed for other things and the preservation of historical
records is accorded a very low priority. Welcome to Britain in the 21st
century; across the entire range of archive institutions public sector
cuts have wiped out staffing levels (Oxfordshire has lost over a third
of its staff, and we aren't the worst hit) and building programmes for
additional storage space have been closed down. There is an enormous
betrayal of history going on, but it isn't confined to a small college
in the Thames Valley. Perhaps some of the energy being expended on the
Ruskin question could be channelled into making the public aware of a
much broader destruction of their heritage.
Carl Boardman
Oxfordshire History Centre
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