Hi Martin

don't get me wrong, I wasn't aiming to criticise, the data wasn't aimed at SMR's and therefore we can't be surprised that the data structure is not one that would perhaps be chosen if it was.

I was merely pointing out that the use of Pre-1974 boundaries has implications for MIDAS compatibility (IE it should go in as an Historic Admin Area rather than current) and also on deciding on which data to send to whom.

I am sure the following (not exhaustive) list of SMR's (South Yorkshire; York, North Yorkshire, N York Moors, Yorkshire DAles;  West Yorkshire; et al) would not want to each have to trawl through the full list of Memorials for Yorkshire to figure out which are in their area. As part of the mapping to MIDAS, looking at the data in terms of how such an issue can be addressed would be useful as well.

best wishes


Nick Boldrini
SMR Computing Officer
Heritage Unit
North Yorkshire County Council
Direct Dial (01609) 532331

North Yorkshire County Council has the right 
and does inspect E-Government mails sent
from and to its computer system.

>>> [log in to unmask] 26/11/2002 15:02:19 >>>
>Whilst I don't wish to moan about this, as we would be happy to get the
data, this is something that Martin/DSU needs to
>bear in mind for this project, and possibly other projects of this type
(hopefully this is the first of many projects where
>national datasets are universally made available to SMR's.....)

I would just like to point out that neither myself or the DSU were involved
in the specification of the recording or the database. This was not an EH
project.

>Spinning off from this, the issue about the accuracy of the NGR's begs the
question of how the Inventory was compiled - was
>this desk based research or did it involve site visits of any sort?
Recording in the field was carried out by volunteers. To give some further
background I'll forward on Jane's paper to the HELPS e conference 'Unpicking
the Past", apologies to HELPS members who have seen the following before.

Martin


-----Original Message-----
From: Newman, Martin [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 05 November 2002 10:51
To: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: UK National Inventory of War Memorials

Welcome to the second day of the Organising Survey Projects Session of
Unpicking The Past. Today's conference paper is on the UK National Inventory
of War Memorials by Jane Furlong who is based at the Imperial War Museum.

Martin


----------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE UK NATIONAL INVENTORY OF WAR MEMORIALS
Jane Furlong, Imperial War Museum

Introduction
This paper is written as a follow up to the one presented by my colleague at
the Weaving the Tapestry conference in 1999. Since that time, the Inventory
has developed considerably and the role of both the staff managing the
Project and that of our volunteer fieldworkers has shifted in emphasis. This
paper aims to show how the project continues to evolve.

Background
To begin, I will first give a brief history of the Project. On Thursday 8
November 2001, the Imperial War Museum announced the launch of a new
database and archive, the UK National Inventory of War Memorials (UKNIWM).
UKNIWM, established in 1989, has been a ground-breaking and successful
partnership between major public institutions, a dedicated nationwide
network of volunteers and generous sponsors and is jointly administered by
the Imperial War Museum and English Heritage.

The Inventory as it stands today is the result of 13 years of hard work.
Overseen by a committee formed of representatives of organisations sharing
similar concerns about war memorials throughout this country, information
has been collected on all physical objects in the United Kingdom created or
installed to commemorate those killed in time of conflict or as a result of
military service. Volunteer fieldworkers were recruited from those
organisations on the committee as well as through appeals in the local press
and community magazines. These appeals have helped to generate a countrywide
team dedicated to locating, recording and researching war memorials
throughout the UK and as at 2002 we currently have over 450 fieldworkers
working in the field.

The Changing Face of the Inventory
However, since the launch the Inventory has been going through a process of
transition due to two main factors: the changing aims of the Inventory; a
new attitude towards volunteers in general within the Imperial War Museum
(IWM). I will look at each of these in turn.

The Inventory is currently evolving from a project which concentrates on
data collection and data input to one in which the consolidation of that
information gains increasing importance. This, coupled with the Inventory's
rapidly increasing public service requirements has meant that the role of
the volunteer in the field has become a less prominent part of our work.

Whilst we could never claim that the Inventory is complete, as memorials are
still be erected to this day and old ones are being rediscovered, the
Inventory now runs a huge risk of duplicating information that is collected
by our fieldworkers. Our system of local co-ordinators has helped alleviate
this but each one of our 450 fieldworkers are now chasing increasingly
smaller numbers of memorials which have not yet been recorded. Consequently,
the management of this team has at times become more of a hindrance than a
help as more time is being taken up with organisation of fieldwork rather
than the inputting of the data received and carrying out our public service
role. As the essential job of a volunteer is not only for them to have a
rewarding experience but for their work to have a positive benefit for the
project we have now come to the decision that we must reduce the number of
active volunteers to a core group within each county.

Fieldworkers' roles will essentially be the same as in the past. They will
be collecting information for the Inventory, but the type of information
they will be collecting will be of a different nature. We will still be
asking them to keep an eye out for any gaps in our survey and keep us up to
date on the condition of those memorials they have recorded. This latter job
is especially important if we are to maintain the founding spirit of helping
to protect and preserve memorials as quite a few of our records are over 10
years old.

However, we now need to plug the gap in the background history of the
memorials we have on our database. This will involve much trawling through
local archives, a less attractive job than doing site surveys judging by the
current lack of background information for many memorials. Whilst very time
consuming, this work needs fewer people to be able to do it  hence the need
to reduce the numbers.

The second impetus towards the change in the Inventory is the introduction
of a volunteers' working strategy at the IWM. This strategy was initiated
owing to the Museum's desire to recognise the considerable help that it
receives from volunteers and to provide a uniformly positive volunteering
experience in line with best practice and current legislation for those who
have become a volunteer at any of the museum's five branches. Before this
was initiated each branch had its own basic policy depending upon the number
and usage of volunteers.

Some branches are more reliant on volunteers than others, for example the
UKNIWM's large team in the field is unique for IWM London. Recognition of
their work was done on a informal basis, for example, whilst we at the
UKNIWM would arrange for free entry for our fieldworkers to any of the IWM
sites, this option was not available to those working at other sites.
However, whilst the policy is still in its planning stages, each department
who uses volunteer is now aware of the overall strategy and the fact that
each person is now treated on a equal basis no matter where they work. We
have realised for a while that quite few of our fieldworkers are no longer
active and, with the forthcoming greater accountability towards them, the
need to reassess our working relationship with them is paramount.

Conclusion
As with any survey project, there will come a time when the work is
essentially complete. The UKNIWM has now reached that point but it does not
mean to say that we are now going to discard our volunteers with a brief
thank you but goodbye. Each one of them has played a valuable part in
forming this unique archive but many of them have additional interests and
many are spending less time helping the Inventory. However, we need to know
this so that we can devote more time and resources to those who are working
for us. Those who stay will continue to be appreciated but those who wish to
move on are being encouraged to help Friends of War Memorials, a charity
established to help protect and preserve war memorials, who are looking for
fieldworkers to help them in their work. We will always have a need for
volunteers but change is now upon us and we hope to take this opportunity to
enable the work that has been done to reach a wider audience through access
on the internet and public access terminals within the various Museum sites.


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