Change the Record

Tuesday 21st November 2017

Business archives contain the records of enduring value of a business. But how are those records changing? How are archivists responding to those changes? Do the changes make capturing and using records more difficult or just difficult in a new way? The BAC’s annual conference will look at how shifts in the technology landscape have impacted records creation and use. Our speakers will examine these issues with views from both a theoretical standpoint, and from the practitioner on the frontline. It’s time to change the record, so come along and see how!

Early bird rate for BAC members available until 13th October.

Plan for the day:

Opening presentation

- Simon Demissie and Arike Oke, archivists at The Wellcome Trust

Wellcome changes: rethinking our approach in an evolving environment

The archive world has borne witness to a gradual change over time in the records being created, how those records are used, the expectations of what archives should collect, and in the way that people want to access those records. Archive professionals now need a range of skills barely dreamt of by our predecessors. How can we as a profession respond and develop to these opportunities, and how can we work beyond the traditional skills, background and communities of research to become more open, agile and adaptable in both our professional practice and in the archive services we run? Drawing on the recent experiences at Wellcome Collection, this keynote will analyse what we have done to attempt to create and re-create working practices, communities of knowledge and teams. We will reflect on the progress of Wellcome’s experiments in challenging our approaches to collections information and collection development. We will examine whether these approaches have helped the library to contribute more visibly towards the strategic goals of Wellcome itself, and we will ask what comes next for both Wellcome and the archives sector.

Panel session- The changing nature of the business record

- Elizabeth Lomas of UCL, and Mary Rutherford and Chris Campbell from GSK will each present in this session, with subjects including the change in format of specific record types and the impact of ERP on records management; this session is bound to spark conversation.

Afternoon opening presentation

- Dawn Sinclair, archivist at Harper Collins

Celebrating a 19th century business in a 21st century world 

Archives hold hundreds of amazing stories and in this digital world, we have never had so many options in how we tell them. To celebrate our 200 year anniversary, we had to go beyond the conventional and think about how to engage our customers, employees and ensure our celebration was a success.

An interactive sesison will follow.

Panel session - Using the record

- Margaret Procter, the University of Liverpool

A collaborative PhD between the University of Liverpool and Barclays

- Alix Green, Essex University and Judy Faraday,The John Lewis Partnership

Developing a model for academic-archivist co-designed projects in business

This session is about creating a model for archivist-academic engagement that challenges the simplistic notion that archivists make records available and respond to enquiries, and academics come into the archive to access those records for their own research.  Building on many years’ collaboration, the speakers will share their early-stage perspectives on a new co-designed project looking at John Lewis’ post-war pay policy, which aims to inform the business’ present-day strategies. Judy Faraday from John Lewis will discuss the benefits to the archive within its commercial context of an approach that brings academic and archival expertise together to respond to current business priorities. Alix Green from the University of Essex will then explore how shifting mind-set – from seeing archivists as gatekeepers to recognising their role as collaborative partner – can transform and energise the research and its potential for impact.

- Ryland Thomas, Senior Economist, the Bank of England.

The use of archival data at the Bank of England to help answer current policy questions 

This presentation will discuss a joint project by archivists, IT staff and economists at the Bank to transcribe the archival data on the Bank’s transactions during historical financial crises and how that archival data can inform current policy.

There will be plenty of opportunity for discussion throughout the day.


Further details:

Full programme available in due course on the BAC website.

The venue will be Harper Collins, The News Building situated close to London Bridge, which offers spectacular views of The City.

The AGM will be held at 09.30 with registration from 09.00. The conference itself will begin at 10.30, will registration from 10.00. The day will finish at 17.00.

The conference will be followed by the Wadsworth prize for Business History.

Booking is available through Eventbrite:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/business-archives-council-agm-conference-2017-tickets-36211086334

An early bird rate for BAC members will be available until 13th October.

Please send any questions to conference organisers at: [log in to unmask]

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For information about joining, leaving and suspending mail (eg during a holiday) see the list website at
https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=archives-nra