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Hi, 

I really enjoyed my last few sessions with MA students...

In my previous role I had to introduce MA performance studies students to our collections and what archives are and after struggling a few times with some academic theory (familiar to them)  and professional definitions of archives I finally decided to start the 2 hour session with a demonstration of what I do as an archivist and I showed them the archives I was working with at the time - we talked through how they arrived with us, what had been done so far and then talked through what I was doing at that stage with appraisal and arrangement.

I found that this takes quite a long time because you get a lot of questions but it was great - they were genuinely interested and were able to contribute to the discussion because they could see an example of the process in front of them. I was really pleased that then when we were talking about archives more generally, both in that session and in homework and the following session, that they understood key principles I'd never been able to get across before.

A few students went on to really develop the archival focus of their work and I think while it is hard to generate standard 'what to do with archives' advice, understanding what archivists do enables them to think up ideas themselves.

One other thought - at a workshop at the National Library of Wales last year which we organised to develop pedagogical uses of special collections, we found out that lots of departments were setting up their own class visits and doing interesting assignments based on archival items...a list of these would be great for teachers and archivists I think!

Best wishes

Amy Staniforth

From: Gillian Fewings <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, 6 February 2013, 12:02
Subject: FW: MA Students using archives for the first time: where to begin!



-----Original Message-----
From: Gillian Fewings
Sent: 06 February 2013 11:03
To: 'Jane Stevenson'
Subject: RE: MA Students using archives for the first time: where to begin!


Partly on the same theme, so might be helpful ?

One of the third-years Journalism and Media students -Dan - used some of the archive materials and produced two short films based on his experiences  - they've been really effective  in  engaging new users.

For interest , here's the links - the films are 'A Marjon Scrapbook' and 'Time Addict').
http://vimeo.com/danielgrindrod/timeaddicttrailer
http://vimeo.com/43124027

Worth asking a post-MA  student or two to film a short tutorial on their experiences, maybe?

Best
G

-----Original Message-----
From: Archivists, conservators and records managers. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jane Stevenson
Sent: 06 February 2013 10:09
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: MA Students using archives for the first time: where to begin!

Hi all (me again!),

I gave a short talk to MA students yesterday about strategies for searching for archives. I talked about what archives are, tips for using archives, visiting reading rooms, using the various aggregators, etc etc.

However, in the hands-on what struck me is that they were asking me what to actually do with the archives. That is, how do they use them in their research. They seemed a bit overwhelmed with these huge descriptions they were finding and didn't know how to start thinking about ways to bring the archives into their dissertations.

I wondered if anyone knows of any advice out there that I can either point students to, or maybe utilities in order to create a few pages on the Hub about 'first steps in using archives for your dissertation'.

There are some great educational resources on TNA's Education pages, but they are more focussed on exercises using archives, and present exercises that are already worked out, they are not so much aimed at students at an MA level and how they work with the kinds of evidence that archives provide (although I might have missed something here - please let me know).

cheers,
Jane.



Jane Stevenson
The Archives Hub
Mimas, The University of Manchester
Devonshire House, Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9QH

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blog: archiveshub.ac.uk/blog
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