The national broadcaster has a special role in preserving audio and visual materials, not least to underpin its own reportuing
Josie Maralngurra touching her hand stencil made when she was around 12. In the background are three white barramundi fish figures with red line-work also created by her father Djimongurr.
Photograph by Fiona McKeague, copyright Parks Australia
National archive documents raise questions about how definitive British efforts to prevent arms transfers to Iran really were after the revolution that toppled the Shah.
Russian traditional wooden matryoshka dolls showing Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin on sale in a street souvenir shop in Moscow.
(AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
History always served as a weapon in the former Soviet Union, a way to control the narrative and deny the truth of the past. Vladimir Putin is now attempting to control this narrative through war.
In a 1949 photograph, Mori works in his family’s nursery in San Leandro, Calif.
Courtesy of Steven Y. Mori
On Dec. 2, 1941, a publication date was set for Mori’s first book. Five days later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, upending the writer’s life and throwing the book’s publication into doubt.
Nottingham Black Archive is recovering the stories of those who made important contributions to the national story of Black British history. The UK needs more like it.
‘That physicians in the Anti-Vaccine Society (England, early 19th C) were concerned that Jenner’s smallpox inoculation gave people bovine-like features.’ – historian’s tweet in reply to author asking about memorable finds.
Twitter/Wellcome
Historians, archivists and other researchers got in touch with tales of their archival finds and bizarre research moments. These ranged from the quirky to the disturbing to the profound.
People are warned that what they post on the internet will live forever. But that’s not really the case.
3alexd/E+ via Getty Images
Portions of the internet disappear every day. Preservation of this historical record requires a proactive approach by archivists and everyday citizens.
Lord Mountbatten, Ghandi and Lady Mountbatten in New Delhi in 1947.
AP/AAP
An immense trove of the most important royal historical material for decades has just quietly been made public in the United Kingdom.
Members of the Ossewabrandwag on parade during WWII. The then political opposition collaborated with the Germans.
OB Photo Collection/Records, Archives and Museum Division, North-West University
Losing archives has significant implications in a country like South Africa with a fraught and contested history because voices from the past, which may carry alternative histories, are lost.
In our current context of rapidly improving technology, archives and museums must constantly make tough decisions about what to keep, what to refuse or even remove.
(Shutterstock)
Media coverage of the recent Dr. Seuss controversy are rooted in both a lack of awareness of the challenges and realities of maintaining collections and a false understanding of history.
An initiate parades through his village in Mbale, Uganda.
Luke Dray/Getty Images
During the coronavirus pandemic, digitizing archives can help increase access. But in addition to the labour and financial costs, issues of privacy, copyright and resources need to be considered.
The sequoias that live on the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in California are the largest trees in the world by volume.
Erin Donalson/EyeEm via Getty Images
In a year of lockdowns, The Impossible Project gives life to shows that never reached the stage. More than 150 events are listed on this online archive, and sadly, more are likely to come.
Jeanette W. Jones holds the September 1957 issue of Ebony magazine, which features the article ‘Mystery People of Baltimore: Neither red, nor black, nor white. Strange ‘Indian’ tribe lives in world of its own.’ She is pictured at center, with her hand on her hip.
Photo Sean Scheidt; author provided
Two Lumbee scholars who have mined local archives in search of tribal history raise the profound question: Who has the rights to memories and artifacts of their people’s past?