IN DEPTH
Archives and paper trails: Establishing new communities of learning and collaboration
University of Chichester’s Andrew W M Smith explains how the unexpected paper trails encountered in research led to a partnership between librarians, archivists and researchers resulting in a unique conference hosted by UCL’s Special Collections and Archives.
THIS story started with a second-hand book I had ordered from a bookseller in Toulouse. When it arrived, the 1954 book seemed a good copy, though I soon discovered that its pages were uncut. A brief rifl e through (and some impromptu book surgery) revealed some original marketing material tucked between its pages, which asked – four years before the question would be defi nitively answered – “will France’s African empire be lost?” The tide of history which swept France from its colonial possessions was lent a whole new force by the expired question in that material, which in turn better contex- tualised the book itself, The Future of the French Union written by Charles Mus.
Research stories are lost in the margins This sort of encounter sparked creative ideas about the Paper Trails we follow in research, our aff ective relationship with archives and collections, and the ways in which those relationships can often fall by the wayside in published histories. The lives of our research material often go unmarked, lost between the gaps in disciplinary boundaries and narrow defi nitions. Paper is tied up with so much of what we do as historians that it’s sometimes
36 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Dr Andrew W M Smith (
a.smith@
chi.ac.uk @smidbob) is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary History and Politics, University of Chichester, as well as Secretary, Society for the Study of French History, and Honorary Co-Director of Communications, Royal Historical Society.
www.andrewsmith.com.
easy to forget about it. Likewise, our research stories are some of the fi rst things we reach for when talking with colleagues, but they seldom make it into our published work. For me, that sort of tendency can elide the careful, creative and crucial work of Information Professionals from the history that is written.
January-February 2020
Andrew Smith Booc
pp36-38.indd 2
22/01/2020 20:46
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