RBS Archives on twitter

The Royal Bank of Scotland Archives are on twitter as @RBS_Archives and last week they launched a new twitter account for @Johnofthebank to allow them to tweet the 18th century diary of John Campbell, the cashier in charge of RBS during the Jacobite uprising in 1745.

From their press release: His diary records how he paid the rebels in gold from reserves held in Edinburgh Castle and the first tweet will be his diary entry from 14 September 1745, the day he took the bank's valuables to the Castle in anticipation of the Jacobites' arrival in the city. Ruth Reed, Archives Manager at RBS said:

"The diary was ideal for Twitter as it was written in small, daily sections, often with several different entries throughout the day. We're excited about using a new technology to tell a very old story, and hope it will bring this fascinating part of history to a whole new audience."

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Donate a memory

The Museum of Brands in London is holding a donate a memory day on monday 26th September from 10 am to 4.30 pm.

This is a free event for senior citizens only to celebrate their childhood memories and pass them on to the next generation. A team of volunteers will be on hand to gather visitors' memories in a digital memory bank.

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Archives Matter

The Scottish Council on Archives recently launched their Archives Matter brochure.

According to their website this publication seeks to achieve these objectives:

• to serve as an introduction to the world of archives 
• to act as a source of information that will encourage exploration and enquiry 
• to be a persuasive advocacy document highlighting the importance of the archives and records management sector. The publication is both informative and visually attractive, filled with thought- provoking commentary and stunning images.

The brochure includes examples of business archives and why they matter.  It discusses company heritage with Lloyds Banking Group, technical records with the Ballast Trust and using archives for marketing with Diageo.

Its a great brochure, full of lovely pictures, quotes and examples and is full of inspiration about how to use archives and make them work for you.

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Thomas Cook celebrates 170 years

with this great infographic:


A History of British Holidaymaking in Numbers brought to you by Thomas Cook holidays

Rather nicely, they also provided the html code for the infographic to allow other people to embed the image on their website which is what I've done here.  I found it via this site which notes that the facts and information came from their in-house archivist.

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Managing a Small Repository

The Religious Archives Group Conference theme this year is “On a Wing and a Prayer”: Managing the Small Repository.

Looking at the programme there are some similarities in the issues faced by religious archive with those owners of small business archives face.  The conference seeks to

address the needs of those running small repositories and, in the present economic climate, will, we feel, strike a chord with many. There will be presentations on what can be done to preserve materials on a tight budget and another on inventive ways of promoting your collections.

For those working with small business archives, it might be worth enquiring if you can attend and go along on the 27th September to see what lessons can be learned from our colleagues in the religious archives group.

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