Local documents for local people

[Simon R]

Dear all,

I noticed a suggestion made by someone-or-other on the archived thread regarding plastic pockets suggesting that the best way to preserve WWI documents etc was to donate them to the IWM.

Does this view find general currency amongst the forum?

To show my colours: I help to record and preserve the history of the town where I live, everything from prehistory to WWI photographs. It is all in my local independent, volunteer run museum. I think that the local records of a community ought to, (at best and everything being equal) be preserved in that community for that community, especially if we're dealing with Territorial units.

I appreciate that not everyone may think they have the expertise to do this , but here's a secret: it's not that hard. If you have an emotional and intellectual passion for what you do then you can do anything you want.

You could then give the IWM an index of all the material you hold if you wanted to.

[Guest Jeff Floyd]

While donating things to a large, national museum will get them into the hands of a professional curatorial staff with training in preservation, the donations will also go right into the store room, and may never see the light of day again.

Smaller, local museums are far more likely to display or use donations, especially if they have local connections.

In this day of digital imagery, multiple images of paper items could be provided to any number of institutions with an interest.

Personally, I'm loath to listen to any requests that I donate things in my field (medals) to museums. I find collectors are far more likely to actually value the items and display/research/use them for the benefit of the viewing public.

Jeff Floyd

[Simon R]

the donations will also go right into the store room, and may never see the light of day again.

Too right - e.g. the entire archives of all the local PPG16 excavations in my town now in cardboard boxes at the field unit. Not the case everywhere and in all circumstances but here, hasn't worked.

[Paul Hodges]

Difficult one.

I agree that locally significant items should remain in the locality to which they belong, but IWM (or, indeed, the Liddle Collection, Leeds) have advantages. These are national collections, well catalogued, catalogues available on the internet and well used. This means that rather than vanishing into the archives forever there is a decent chance a historian will pick up on them and use them once in a while. For documents, there is the eminently sensible option of offering both a transcript.

I agree that preservation is not such an issue; sensible precautions are not rocket science.