Jenny Moran asked what the purpose of this list officially is.
According to the mailbase website
<http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/lists/archives-nra/> it is to
*enable electronic communication between members of the UK archival
community who have expressed an interest in, or joined, the HMC's Archivists
and the Internet group*
Now this has always intrigued me when I visit the page on my trawls of the
list archive. I have never ever been a member of the AandI group, which as
I understand it (and I am sure Brenda W will correct me if I am wrong as I
know she was a leading light in it) emerged in the mid 1990s as a kind of
alternative to the then SoA IT Group, though not as an official SoA group.
I don't know if it still functions.
Archives-nra since I joined it (and maybe my posting rival the County
Archivist of Chichester can remind us all when that happy day was, I can't
remember...) has never in practice functioned solely or even mainly as the
voice of the Archives and the Internet group, even if this was the original
intention of those who set up the list in the first place (and likewise as
is presumably Ali's intention with the registration one she has kindly told
us about - will it have archives, Ali? - that it should represent those with
an interest in SoA registration). It seems to me that this sentence on the
website should be brought up to date.
Maybe the listowners should start a discussion on what the function of the
list should be in order to update this sentence - always within the Mailbase
boundaries of course, though I agree with Martin and Jenny that it doesn't
look like we've transgressed those yet.
2 final points - I have been a member of academic mailing lists in
the past, although admittedly from the US rather than out of the Mailbase
stable, and they were rather more idle, futile, genuinely arrogant and
offensive, energetic and time-wasting than any archives ones ever are; and
if you want involved archival debate worthy of report in the Newsletter etc,
try aus-archivists!
All the best
Sarah
(paragraphs going a bit funny, apologies)
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