Archives News Stories 05/19/2014

• Historic images reframe Aboriginal photography – ABC North and West SA – Australian Broadcasting Corporation

  “Calling the shots draws together a collection of archival Aboriginal photography, ranging from ‘touristic’ shots of Aboriginal men holding spears and women with their babies, through to staid studio portraits.

  Many of these historic photographs have been described as exploitative, taken for reproduction on postcards, or for ‘species documentation’.”

  tags: news archives

• Feature: Exporting Visions and Saving Children- The Swedish Save the Children Fund | Voluntary Action History Society

  “That children should be exempted from war and political conflicts, regardless of their nationality and religious affiliation, is considered self-evident by most countries’ governments and non-governmental organisations. The number of nations that ratified the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child in 1989 is a clear sign of this. However, looking back historically, we can see that upholding this principle has been difficult. In the aftermath of the two world wars when nationalistic currents and political conflicts in Europe were strong, politics appear to have played an important role in determining how relief activities for children were performed.”

  tags: archives

• Tweets and social media to enter National Archives – Telegraph

  “Tweets and YouTube videos will take their place alongside documents from some of Britain’s most important moments as the National Archives moves into social media.

  Thousands of posts about events like the birth of Prince George and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee have already been recorded to create online “snapshots”, and many more will be collected in the future.”

  tags: archives

• Archiving social media | The National Archives blog

  “Capturing content published on blogs has been part of our everyday work for some time. Other social media platforms, such as Twitter and YouTube, are a challenge for traditional web archiving technology. They are highly interactive and instantaneous, and much of the technology that underpins them changes regularly. Social media services are primarily designed with immediate use in mind and, because the content is forever changing and being deleted, it is at a high risk of being lost forever.”

  tags: archives

• The Why and What of Web Archives | The Signal: Digital Preservation

  “For someone who thinks about web archiving almost every day it’s sometimes hard to explain to people outside the digital library community why archiving web sites is worth doing. “They archive themselves,” some say. “Why would you want to save what’s on the Internet?” they wonder. Instead of launching into explanations about cultural heritage, dynamic publishing streams and comprehensive collection policies, I can now point to recent and fun examples of why we should be archiving the web and what it looks like to archive the web.
  Why?”

  tags: archives

• Foreign Office secrecy continues over archive of illegally held files | Politics | theguardian.com

  “Historian Katie Engelhart reports on last week’s FCO ‘records day’ to discuss the fate of thousands of historic files, some containing evidence of murder and torture by colonial authorities “

  tags: news archives

• New project digitally archives testimonies of hundreds of 1948 veterans | JPost | Israel News

  “Toldot Yisrael, a Jerusalem- based nonprofit organization dedicated to recording the firsthand testimonies of men and women who helped found the State of Israel, unveiled on Wednesday a new partnership with the National Library of Israel.

  “These are people who are witnesses to history, people who were at the right place at the right time,” said Aryeh (Eric) Halivni, founder and executive director of Toldot Yisrael, at a press conference announcing the collaboration on Wednesday.”

  tags: news archives

• A colonial heritage | TNS – The News on Sunday

  “Over the past six months, I have been exploring various archives in Pakistan. For those who have never visited an archive department, imagine it to be a mixture, both in appearance and function, of a library, storage room and a sarkari daftar. “

  tags: archives

• Ancient ethnic documents in need of protection | Shanghai Daily

  “GUIYANG, May 4 (Xinhua) — Ancient documents of the Miao and Dong ethnic groups in southwest China’s Guizhou Province need protecting as they are being ruined from natural and man-made disasters.

  The documents, called “Jinping Writs”, refer to the original records of contracts, account books, government reports, genealogy and county regulations in Jinping and its neighboring counties in Guizhou. “

  tags: archives

• Forward to Freedom: The History of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1959-1994 « Africa in Words

  “For the 20th anniversary of the first democratic elections in South Africa on the 27th April a website has been launched recording the history of the Anti-Apartheid Movement in Britain. Funded by the Amiel & Melburn Trust and the Heritage Lottery Fund, ‘Forward to Freedom: The History of the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, 1959-1994′ (www.aamarchives.org) summarises the history of the Movement and makes freely available a selection of documents and other items held in the Anti-Apartheid Movement (AAM) Archive in the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, and some items from other repositories and in private collections. Exhibition boards based on the website are available for loan and an education pack for schools (Key Stage 3) is in development.”

  tags: archives

• Who owns the Jewish treasures that were hidden in Saddam Hussein’s basement? | PBS NewsHour

  “In 2013, Maurice Shohet, an Iraqi Jew who now lives in Washington, D.C., received a surprising email from the National Archives. A librarian had recovered his elementary school record that was left behind nearly 40 years ago when he and his family fled Iraq. The record is part of a cache of thousands of personal documents and religious texts that were found at the start of the Iraq War, drowning in the cellar of a building run by one of the world’s most wanted men.”

  tags: archives

• “Endangered Archives” program opens up priceless Palestinian heritage | The Electronic Intifada

  “A project run by the British Library, intended to help preserve and extend access to historically significant archives around the world, will allow researchers and the general public to access ancient and valuable manuscripts from Palestinian institutions.”

  tags: archives

• Fighting for history: Iraq, the US and the hidden Jewish archive – Telegraph

  “The basement of the bombed-out Iraqi intelligence headquarters was dark, hot and flooded.

  Severed wires hung from the ceiling and dead animals floated in the water that filled the gloomy hallways. The building’s top floors had been crushed by US bombs dropped weeks earlier and it seemed possible that the whole structure could collapse at any time.

  But the soldiers from Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, the American unit tasked with hunting for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, waded on into the darkness. “

  tags: archives

• UN photo archive tells story of Palestinian refugees | The Times of Israel

  “The photo is one of 525,000 in the agency’s archive being digitized to preserve a record of one of the world’s most entrenched refugee problems, created in what the Palestinians call the “Nakba,” or “catastrophe” — their uprooting in the war over Israel’s 1948 creation.

  As Palestinians mark the Nakba’s 66th anniversary Thursday, the photos tell the story of the refugee crisis’ transition from temporary to seemingly permanent. Tent camps of the 1950s have turned into urban slums with some alleys so narrow residents can only walk single file past drab multi-story buildings.”

  tags: archives

• Report: Deal Reached to Save Iraqi Jewish Archive – Jewish World – News – Arutz Sheva

  “A deal between the US State department and the Iraqi government appears to have been struck to keep the Iraqi-Jewish archive in the US, the World Organisation of Jews from Iraq (WOJI) has announced.

  The archive, as the collection of 2,700 restored Jewish books and thousands of documents is known, is due to return to Iraq after the ‘Discovery and Recovery’ exhibit at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York closes this week. “

  tags: archives

• Push forward for GLBTI archival space | Alternative Media Group of Australia

  “With the City of Sydney’s resolution in March to forge ahead with its plans to transform the long-vacant T2 building in Taylor Square into a ‘cycling hub’, a new motion tabled by Labor councillor Linda Scott at this month’s council meeting calling for the establishment of an GLBTI archival space was defeated.

  To commemorate the 35th anniversary of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras (SGLMG) last year, council facilitated a pop-up exhibition space, managed by SGLMG, on Oxford Street.

  However, the not-for-profit organisation has consistently lobbied the City for the establishment of a permanent Mardi Gras museum. Buoyed by considerable community support, the idea became one of the key issues at the last lord mayoral elections in 2012.”

  tags: archives

• Iraqi Jewish Archive’s U.S. exhibition extended — JNS.org

  “The U.S. National Archives and the New York-based Museum of Jewish Heritage had been displaying some of the 2,700 Jewish books and ancient documents that were recovered in the basement of the Iraqi intelligence ministry (Mukhabarat) during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The artifacts were set to return to Iraq in June.”

  tags: archives

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.