BAC Archive Workshop

The Business Archives Council is holding an archive workshop for new researchers in London on Thursday 8th December.

The workshop aims to explore ways in which new research students can identify and use business records in a surprising variety of different research fields. Participants will be able to explore the vast and varied materials available at many of the UKs major and minor business archives. Now in its fourth year, this event will be hosted by The Rothschild Archive. Following a successful formula from previous years, the day will commence with an archives skills workshop run by eminent academic historians, followed by a buffet lunch, where participants will be able to meet the archivists.

Find out more here including the full timetable featuring archives and archivists from The Baring Archive, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, London Metropolitan Archives, The National Archives and the Rothschild Archive.

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BACS & ARA event

A reminder that tomorrow (Friday 25 November), the Business Archives Council of Scotland (BACS) and Archives and Records Association Scottish Region are holding a joint financial records conference sponsored by CAIS Dundee to introduce members of both organisations to the records of financial institutions.

It will provide a ‘hands-on’ opportunity to use the records of the Alliance Trust, one of Dundee’s prominent Investment Trusts and learn more about using financial records.

The Annual Joan Auld lecture founded in memory of Dundee’s first University Archivist will follow lunch and the day will conclude with the Regional Meeting of the Association and the AGM of BACS.

Find out more in the programme.

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Welsh Business Archives

Another Welsh initiative is the Wales Powering the World blog which is a project looking at Welsh Industry through Archives.

This Archives and Record Council Wales collobarative project was funded by the Pilgrim Trust under the National Cataloguing Grants Scheme. Ten of the most valuable un-catalogued business collections from north and south Wales were catalogued and are now available through their holding repositories. The collections were:

• Cardiff Incorporated Chamber of Commerce, Glamorgan Archives
• Coppack Bros. & Co., Connah’s Quay, Flintshire Record Office
• Davies Bros., Slate Merchants, Porthmadog, Gwynedd Archives
• Emlyn Colliery and Brickworks, Carmarthenshire Archive Service
• Inigo Jones Ltd., Slate Merchants of Nantlle, Gwynedd Archives
• Powell Duffryn Limited, Glamorgan Archives
• South Wales Transport Collection, Richard Burton Archives, Swansea University
• Vivian and Sons Limited, West Glamorgan Archive Service
• Waddle Engineering and Fan Company, Carmarthenshire Archive Service
• Wrexham Lager Company Papers, Wrexham Archives and Local Studies

They are holding a workshop on Friday 27th January in Swansea at the University Archives on the subject of business archives and their use for researchers.

 

 

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NLS OneSource Business Database

The National Library of Scotland has released information about a new business database that will provide free global business information for Scottish companies.

This database is part of its SCOTBIS service - The Scottish Business Information Service which is a national information service for Scottish businesses, based on the extensive business resources at the National Library of Scotland.

The OneSource Global Business database provides information on more than 17 million companies worldwide, including almost three million in the UK. In addition, there is information on specific industries and company executives, together with news, reports and analysis.

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Welsh Copper

A website all about Welsh Copper has been lauched. The website is a learning legacy site using the resources created for the Global and Local Worlds of Welsh Copper knowledge exchange project.

It makes many of the resources generated for various of the project's initiatives freely available and is packed full of information about copper's industrialisation in Wales and how it impacted upon world trade. Highlights include exhibition guides with downloadable resources relating to the recent major exhibition at the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea, and that now accompany the travelling exhibition.

It is aimed primarily as introductory material that can be used in the class or seminar room or just by those interested in learning more about this fascinating aspect of industrial history and heritage.

It also has information about copper business archives, including news about a survey of copper archives that the project has undertaken.

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100 years of Harris Tweed

There is an event tomorrow Friday 18th November at The Old School in Shawbost, Isle of Lewis to mark 100 years of the Harris Tweed Orb organised by Harris Tweed and The Islands Book Trust.

[Image from here]

See the flyer for more details.

This one-day event, arranged by the Islands Book Trust at the request of the Harris Tweed Authority, will mark the centenary of the Orb by reviewing the history of this vitally important and distinctive island industry, celebrating its successes and achievements, and reflecting on the current and future challenges it faces.

Thanks to the Hebridean Archive Service blog for the tip-off about this event.

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More infographics

Another lovely example of an infographic.  This time showing the history and company development of the many different US Airlines.

[Image from here]

This graphic was designed and created by Larry Gormley of HistoryShots. From the website:

The purpose of this graphic is to uncover and explain how the industry was created and how it arrived at its present form. At the core is a full genealogy of over 100 US airlines from the major airlines to the small local service carriers. Folded into the genealogy is the relative market share of passenger traffic for each airline. This allows the viewer to understand how the industry was controlled for many decades by the Big Four and how this dominance was quickly replaced by a number of other airlines.

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Data Mapping Project

The NSBAS Implementation Group are pleased to announce that the Archives and Records Association have approved a grant from their research and advocacy fund for a Data Mapping Project in Scotland.

The data mapping project aims to create a single consistent and clarified dataset for business archive collections in Scotland that will provide improved and flexible information for creators, custodians and users of business archives.

It will do this by locating and mapping business archive collections and collecting policies in Scotland. The focus will be the verification of data about known business archive collections to inform the National Strategy for Business Archives in Scotland. Analysis of the results of this data collation will provide information that will inform many other areas of the strategy and create a project methodology that can be shared with partner organisations in the rest of the UK.

The project will:

• Gather and disseminate information on business archives for use by heritage professionals, researchers and businesses to improve management of and access to collections. 
• Develop and share a methodology for carrying out a survey of collections. 
• Add value to existing data and share this enhanced data with owners.

We will have a project officer working on this in December and have been very fortunate this week to receive extracted data from the National Register of Archives.  This contains information about over 6,000 business archive collections which we plan to check, update and map so that users will be able to search the data by geographic area, time period and industry sector.  This ability will in turn help to identify collecting strengths and weaknesses and reveal gaps in the collections across Scotland to inform surveying policies and other work.

We will be posting about the project here on the blog as we get started and it progresses.  If you have any questions then please email Kiara or businessarchivesscotland@gmail.com.

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Guinness Was Good for Us

The Scottish Oral History Centre is holding a workshop today in Glasgow at 5:30pm called 'Guinness Was Good for Us: Understanding Corporate Culture Through Oral and Visual Approaches' by Prof Tim Strangleman.

[Image from here]

The workshops are open to all and held in Room 4.02 of the McCance Building at the University of Strathclyde.

More information here.

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