The usual apologies for cross-posting...



This is a second, reminder, announcement for:


FINDING THE FAMILIAR II
Retention, Discard, and Sampling Policies for post-1750 Artefacts

University of Leicester
Bennett Building Teaching Area 1 (BEN G85 - ground floor)

26 March 2011
10:30am - 4:00pm

Sponsored by:

The Centre for Historical Archaeology (University of Leicester) and The Finds Research Group


The material culture of the industrial age (defined for this workshop as c.1750-c.1940) is increasingly of interest to British archaeologists, whether working in academia, museums, or commercial archaeology. Yet this increased interest comes at a time when hard-pressed local archives are increasingly reluctant - in some cases unable - to accept large collections of artefacts from the period of mass-production and mass-consumption. Finds from more recent sites (or more recent levels of multi-period sites) therefore often continue to be discarded or ignored despite the growing level of professional interest.

This workshop addresses this paradox between the growing interest on the artefacts of the more recent past, and the reluctance of many archives to store them, by bringing together speakers representing academia, commercial archaeology, and local museums and archives from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ireland in order to consider the desirability of developing retention, discard, and sampling policies for post-1750 artefacts, and how those policies should be formulated. A roundtable discussion open to all workshop participants will close the day.


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The full, confirmed list of presenters and topics is:

1) Alasdair Brooks (University of Leicester): Introduction - retention, discard and sampling of post-1750 artefacts; challenges and potential.

2) Quinton Carroll (Cambridgeshire County Council): Why do you keep all this stuff anyway? Some suggestions for practical archiving.

3) Yolanda Courtney (Leicestershire Museums): Rational collections: a local authority perspective on disposal.

4) Julie Franklin (Headland Archaeology): Wading through the waste: strategies for coping with finds from Glasgow's industrial past

5) Julie Cassidy (Northamptonshire finds liaison officer): The Portable Antiquity Scheme: digital recording and exceptions to the missing 300 years

6) Nigel Jeffries (Museum of London Archaeology): Approaches to mass produced ceramics in London: what to do when faced with 3.7 tonnes of early 20th-century jam jars

7) Roseanne Meenan (Freelance archaeologist, Republic of Ireland): Just some old cheny... - the view from Ireland

8) Charles Cheek (John Milner Associates [USA]): Curation in the United States: Regulations and Problems

9) Closing panel discussion


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The registration fee of £5 is payable on the day, but attendees are asked to register in advance as spaces are limited, and are beginning to fill quickly.

To download a PDF of the registration form, please follow the link at: <http://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/archaeology/research/events>

For maps of, and directions to, the University of Leicester: http://www2.le.ac.uk/maps (the campus is a short walk from the train station).

Please direct queries to Alasdair Brooks: [log in to unmask]

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