ESRC Research Methods Festival 30 June 2008

ESRC Research Methods Festival

30 June 2008

Vanessa Carr, Head of Academic Liaison

May 2008

What is an archive?

•Definition

•Different types of archives

•Archival integrity

Value of archives in research

•Primary source, raw data, uninterpreted

•Provision of factual information

•To gather data for manipulation or statistical purposes

What is The National Archives?

•Background

•Holdings

•Vision

Who uses The National Archives?

•The various sectors and interests

•The academic sector

The National Archives’ own

research agenda•Independent Research Organisation status

•Interpretive research

•Conservation and preservation

•Born-digital records

•Research methodologies in the 21st century

Academic liaison

•Existing users

•New audiences – social scientists and historians of health and medicine

•Academic strategy

Sources for social scientists

•Policy, registers, correspondence, proformae

•National Digital Archive of Datasets

•Some of the main government departments and subjects

•Government web archive

•Public Sector Information

Scoping study into sources for social

scientists•Financed by the ESRC

•To build on the work done in the 1970s

•Summary report available on the ESRC website at:

http://www.esrcsocietytoday.ac.uk/ESRCInfoCentre/about/CI/CP/tna/

•Recommendations

Some specific projects

•Royal Navy surgeons’ journals

•Using archival sources to inform contemporary policy debates

•Poor Law correspondence

•Census data for academic use

•Electronic patients records

Possible projects

•Household expenditure surveys

•Criminal registers

•Home Office correspondence

•CASE studentships

•Public policy seminars

Thank you!

Vanessa Carr

[email protected]

www.nationalarchives.gov.uk