Bad marginalia, not good marginalia

Marginalia and other crimes: a catalogue of horrors from Cambridge University Library.

Websites 'must be saved for history'

An interesting article in the Observer this weekend discussing the issue of saving websites and Internet sources for future historians. The British Library's Lynne Brindley argues that the deletion of websites and the failure to archive digital material, including personal digital photographs, could result in gaps in the national memory.

"With an interim report from communications minister Lord Carter on the future of digital Britain imminent, Brindley makes the case for the British Library as the repository that will ensure emails and websites are preserved as reliably as manuscripts and books. "This vision of a digital Britain must include the critical public service of preserving digital Britain's collective memory and digitising the unrivalled content within the British Library."

The library plans to create a comprehensive archive of such "notoriously ephemeral" material from the UK web domain - there are about eight million .uk domain websites, growing at a rate of 15-20% every year. It also has a collecting and archiving project for the London 2012 Olympics."

Leicester - Why do you love this place?

On Friday 30 January, Colin Hyde and Cynthia Brown will speak to the university's New History Lab about why they love Leicester. Each will present a paper on an aspect of the city's history, and there will be time to meet the speakers and to discuss their work.

See you there:

• 4.30-6pm: Jack Simmons Seminar Room, 1 Salisbury Road, Leicester (map)
  
• Tea and cake before, pub after

Popular history gets textual

At the weekend I posted an article from the Scotsman about some treasures in the Scottish Catholic Archives, and noted how non-historians are increasingly interested in original documents. The recent advent of digitized newspaper archives has transformed much academic research: full-text searches and pdf downloads are now possible from a desktop computer, rather than weeks expended poring over microfilm or crumbling originals. And for the ever-growing army of family historians, it has made life easier too. An unexpected spin-off of this has been that primary materials relating to popular events are now available, often as the freebies, hoping to entice a sale. For example The Times offers reporting from the trial of Oscar Wilde in that same vein; that archive even has its own blog, with a top twenty archive pieces accessed in 2008.

Shock news just in...

To copy-and-paste the byline: 'Peter Gwyn finds little evidence and much speculation in David Starkey's latest offering'.

What does Mary Queen of Scots have in common with Hibernian Football Club?

A cache of letters written by Mary Queen of Scots expressing concern about Scotland's political turmoil has recently been discovered in the Scottish Catholic Archives. Other hidden gems, including some papers on the founding of Hibernian Football Club's founding are discussed in the Scotsman article. Perhaps the interesting thing is that archival finds of this nature can hold interest far from the main research user groups.

New online resources

JISC has announced that the British Periodicals Collections I and II and the Burney Collection will be freely available to universities . I can't wait to get on these!

History Corrected by 400-year-old Moon Map

This story has popped up on quite a few news sites over the past couple of days, quite interesting.

"Thomas Harriot, a wealthy but publicity-shy astronomer and mapmaker, produced a series of exquisite lunar drawings, one of which is dated 26 July 1609, pre-dating Galileo's much-celebrated observations of the moon by six months."

Presenting Research

There are many different ways of presenting research. The poster fair, for example, opens up a lot of graduate research to the public. However, these scientists had to produce dance videos and put them on youtube. Perhaps this could be an alternative to the conventional APG report? More details and some sample videos here.

Malcolm

Data visualization

Early Modern Notes has a fascinating set of links on data visualization. The graph of Box Office receipts, 1986-2008 from the New York Times is awesome. In fact, it's almost as good as what Edward Tufte called 'the best statistical graphic ever drawn': Charles Joseph Minard's diagram of Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia.

Ernest Gimson: events at New Walk

If you’ve spent too long cooped up in the library writing essays and researching over Christmas, why not go along to some of the exciting events at New Walk as part of their Ernest Gimson season? I have some details from Jane May - who gave the talk on Victorian underwear and other delights at Treasures, as many of you will recall. The potato bottle for gin was my favourite. There are various talks and workshops about Ernest Gimson and the Arts and Crafts including a free demo of metalworking techniques on Jan 18, another of chairmaking on Feb 14, a series of lunchtime talks at 1pm on Mondays starting Jan 19th (£4.00/3.50), a gallery tour of the exhibition with Jane May on Jan 24 (£2.70) and a hands-on look at furniture with Jane on Feb 5 (£2.70). Leanda de Lisle is giving a talk based on her new book about Lady Jane Grey and her sisters on Jan 25 (£2.70), which apparently paints a very different view from the normal innocent/helpless victim etc. And for those not still reeling from the woolly combinations Jane brought to show us, she is giving the full underwear talk aka the Victorian Lady Undressed on Feb 1st (£2.70). Details of all and more are on the museum website www.leicester.gov.uk/museums except for Jane’s lunchtime talk 'Good Habits and Hobbies' on Feb 9 which is about the wider impact of the Arts and Crafts movement on education and crafts in the home (very annoyingly this got missed out). Advance booking for all except the demos is recommended, call the museum on 225 4900.

Spring programme

Dear All,

Happy New Year! With pleasure I can announce the spring history lab programme. We have three workshops, a peregrination and a lecture. The workshops are in the Seminar Room at 1, Salisbury Road, between 4:30 and 6:00 on a Friday, and the peregrination will take a full Saturday. Full details of the lecture will follow. Any questions, please get in touch!

• Leicester
  Colin Hyde + Cynthia Brown
  Why do you love this place?
  30/1/2009
  
• Knowing
  Prof. Andrew King
  How do we know something…or what do scientists think they're doing?
  13/2/2009
  
• Discoveries
  Siobhan Begley + Tim Davies
  What have you discovered?
  27/2/2009
  
• Sheffield
  Gervase French + Chris Williams
  What happened here?
  Full day peregrination 7/3/2009
  
• Details of the first Lecture will be revealed later, but keep 13/3/09 free
  Dr Tristram Hunt
  The Lab's first ever lecture on Marx, Engels and Manchester - fuller details to follow.
  
  
  

Malcolm

2008 History Blog Awards

The 2008 History Blog Awards have been awarded!