One year anniversary!

The OUAS archives project has turned one today! And it has come such a long way since the beginning – from ‘what’s with all this stuff?‘ to ‘we need more archival resources and an on-line platform for digitalization‘ it’s been an amazing and an extremely rewarding experience! Huge thanks to all of you that started this project, helped out and offered support over the past year – this project would have been impossible without the volunteer work of Katy Allen, Fiona McKendrick, Claire Holubowskyj, Joe Robson,  John Moughton and Oliver French. Special thanks to Dr Sally Crawford, Dr Katharina Ulmschneider, and Dr Wendy Morrison, who have been there to guide us every step of the way, and have offered us all the resources and the help we could have asked for.

Let’s look forward to another year just as wonderful and successful as this one <3.

OUAS Secretary,

Raluca Matei

 

Trinity + Michaelmas 2016: Current status

While this blog has been silent, the archives project has continued as normal! In spite of exams at the end of last term, we have pushed forward with the sorting of our documents. This term, sorting has ended and we are looking forward to moving on to digitising and bringing the archive to its final form.

Nearly 20 boxes of material have been sorted into 7  thematic categories split into merely 6 boxes: Fieldwork, Mail & Finance, Administrative, Administrative Books, Term Cards, and Miscellaneous. Mail and Admin have been by far the most exciting categories, but interesting information can be gathered from all other types of documents. Miscellaneous is the only category that remains inherently problematic, as it is completely made up of objects unrelated to the OUAS – but somebody, at some point, saw fit to archive them. Thus the case may be that these objects could referenced in some letter or minute book or financial document and cannot be thrown out until we check all of our documents.

We hope to be able to do that as we digitise them, but for now other matters are more pressing. While the documents themselves are organised, they are mostly sorted into non-archival safe folders. Up next for us then is to purchase archival safe folders and move all of our sorted material in them, ensuring that they are preserved well into the future. As of now, around 66% of our folders must be replaced. Moreover, we need special book sleeves for our numerous minute books, and we also need special boxes for term cards, dinner invitations, life member’s card registry, and archaeological finds. This will undoubtedly be a pricey investment, but ultimately worth it. Some of the books and documents in our archive date as far back as the end of the 19th century, and thus deserve to be preserved.

The questions that arise then are ‘what happens after the documents are properly stored and digitised?’; ‘what will happen to the archive in the future?’. It is foreseeable that from now on, there will be extremely few objects that will have to be stored in the archive. In fact, since 2008 there have been less than 5 documents added! Since mail has become e-mail, and financial records and publications have moved on-line, the bulk of the documents that make up our archive are now digital. We see no point in printing them off and storing them in the physical archive, especially since most of our present efforts are concentrated to digitising what we already have, and thus we have set up an on-line platform where all of our documents will be archived from now on.

The physical archive will continue to exist, but it is unlikely to grow. In the event that any physical documents do show up in the future, archivists and secretaries will be encouraged to scan them and keep only the digital copy. All the documents of the society will be stored on-line and will be available to the members of the Committee and, pending Committee approval, to researchers. We hope that this course of action will allow the archive to keep developing in a way that is easy to maintain and sustainable!

OUAS Archivist,

Raluca Matei

Weeks 3, 4 and 5: The Short update

Welcome back for a really short update on the archival project! As exams approach, the updates are sadly getting scarcer and shorter, but I promise that we are as passionate about the archives as ever.

In Weeks 3 + 4 I worked firstly on my own, then aided by Claire (who you can finally see in the image above). We were busy organising the mail of past OUAS members – the 50s, 60s and 70s have been unusually rich in mail, and I have had the chance to uncover both speakers’ correspondences, and exciting attempts at establishing projects for the society as a research body: the Medieval Section especially was extremely active at the time, trying to track down documents relating to Oxford’s history. We also started tackling the ‘miscellaneous’ box, which holds everything that does not really belong to the society but still made it into our archive, and is still a cool bit of the past; we are unsure what to do with it, but we are surely not throwing anything out just yet!

At the end of week 3 Fiona, Katy and I had the opportunity to have lunch with Professor Mark Robinson, one of the past OUAS presidents – we can’t promise anything yet, but talking to him about what the society used to be like in the late 60s – early 70s, and about the current state in archaeology, gave us the hope that we might resume OUAS run excavations! More on that, hopefully, to follow.

In Week 5 Claire and I both worked diligently to make progress, as we knew we wouldn’t be able to archive anything in week 6, due to a bank holiday (hence this unusual three-week update). I was happy to finish organising all of the mail, and Claire started looking over excavation files, learning more about the exciting projects that the OUAS was part of.

We will see you again at the end of week 8, for an update on the final weeks of Trinity 2016 – I look forward to seeing what else the archives have in store!

OUAS Archivist,

Raluca Matei

Weeks 1 + 2: Welcome back!

The OUAS Archives project is back for another term at Oxford! Having come back fully refreshed from a well deserved vacation, the archivists’ team has not wasted any time and got right back to sorting through the boxes of material left behind by past society members. The team has suffered some modifications due to scheduling issues, and while we are extremely happy to welcome a new archivist, Claire  Holubowskyj, on our team, we unfortunately also have to make do without Katy and Fiona, who have been lost to the dreaded Oxford essay crisis.

In week 1 Claire and I managed to sort through all of the boxes that were left after last term. We are pleased to have managed to split all of the material into either correspondence, finance, administrative, fieldwork and miscellaneous, and in the following weeks we are hoping to order all of the material chronologically. We have decided to order everything by theme first and only afterwards chronologically due to the fact that if someone were to try and look through the archives for a particular past member, who might (for example) have been active sometime throughout the 60s, they would not have to go through the entire financial record of the 60s when looking for the correspondence of that member. This organisation strategy proved fruitful almost immediately, as Mara Gold, a researcher into the role of women in archaeology, was working along with us that week, trying to determine the role of women in the OUAS – we were able to provide her with the material that was relevant to her research without forcing her to go through correspondence regarding administrative matters, or through financial records.

In week 2, I was left to tackle the archives on my own, and I made my way through one of the ‘administrative’ boxes. I have sorted through all of our termcards, finding a complete record from the late 40s through to the early 80s, some cards from 1900 and 1920, and a few from the early 2000s. I have also organised our life membership cards as well as I could, but unfortunately some of them do not have any dates at all, some have the date from when the individual was a committee member, and some the date from when he/she was accepted as a life member – thus they were a bit tricky to sort, but I am confident that I will be able to correct any eventual errors during the digitalisation process!

I hope this update on the archives finds you well, and I look forward to writing about the progress in organising the archives in a couple of weeks’ time as well!

OUAS Archivist,

Raluca Matei

Weeks 7 + 8: The society tie, exciting bits and bobs and goodbye for the moment!

Alas, one term of archiving has passed and both I and my fellow committee archivists, Fiona and Ralu, have achieved a lot. We have now finished primary sorting of all our boxes, so we have a good idea of the archive’s contents and the themes contained within it.  I would like to thank Ralu for stepping in and writing the previous update. As perhaps suggested by the last couple of posts, the Oxford term-time schedule, as well as the nature of the archive, has convinced us that archive updates should from now on be biweekly.

These last two sessions have been unusually fruitful with regards to the relative proportion of interesting finds (vs. the more common forms of material). One of the most exciting for ourselves personally was the discovery of the society tie. We had come across mention of the tie in the archive before, but were sceptical about finding further details. However, we uncovered both a mini-history of the tie and some fabric samples that we infer were used in the design process. According to certain documents, the first tie possessed a trowel design (a skeleton motif that had been created in earlier decades was abandoned) and was made available by the end of 1963 despite a plea “that the OUAS was not that sort of society”. This was 37 years after an original proposal for a tie was carried in 1926. We also came across some more beautifully-taken black and white and sepia photographs, which are without much contextual information. They are however in good enough condition to identify the individuals in them and the circumstances in which they were taken with further research.

There were a further number of wonderfully drawn maps of local sites, several of which had been excavated and surveyed by the society. There was a very mysterious, mangled box (see image) that looked as though it had yielded to damp over the years. Stacks of cards detailing life members were found, as well as several copies of publications created by the OUAS including the titles ‘Notes on Archaeological Technique’ and ‘Notes on Brass Rubbing’. Publishing is something we would very much be thrilled for the OUAS to be in a position to do once again. I was particularly delighted to come across a heavy stamp, Oxford University Archaeological Society’ engraved into what I assume to be brass. The usual stacks of finance papers and correspondence were also sorted into preliminary piles and filed.

Next term, the plan is to carry out detailed cataloguing by organising material systematically by category and then chronologically. We are very happy to be in a position to begin digitising the more fragile material and as much of everything else as possible over the coming months. By working with the archive, we have all learnt an incredible amount about the society and the values and practices it has upheld in the past. It has inspired us to attempt to revive some of the aspects lost over the decades; and in my role as President in Trinity term 2016, it is my full intention to improve the society in this way. If I could restore it even partially to some of its former glory, I would be pleased indeed.

It has been an absolute pleasure to work with my fellow archivists on this project, and we hope that through ‘excavating’ the archive, we will be able to properly reconstruct the history of the OUAS and place it in the frame of recognition it deserves.

OUAS IT Rep and Archivist,

Katy Allen

 

 

Weeks 5 + 6: Getting to talk to past members and making some progress!

The rather intense nature of Oxford life forces us to bring you another update that covers two weeks of archiving work. 5th week blues have also affected the archiving team, but we have done our best and have uncovered more material. Our most notable finds were the organisation plans for many of the events that used to be organised by the society, such as triennial dinners, visits to interesting historical places around Oxford, excavations, expositions that show the artefacts recovered on OUAS digs, and even plans on how to set up a stand at the Fresher’s fair! We have also come across the meticulous financial records of past society treasurers, and a few society customs that we were previously unaware of (most notably one member of the committee would organise a tea for the others every term).

During the 6th week we have finished another two boxes, and we uncovered numerous member lists, along with more financial records. We have also found some nicely stacked cards that contain the details of society life-members from the 1920s. Dr. Sally Crawford, one of the archivists of the Archaeology Institute, and an active member of the OUAS (she has been on the committee of the society numerous times, also being one of our past presidents) has outlined the prestige that used to be associated to life membership in the society: in order to obtain it, members used to have to apply to the committee and be approved by it – which would only happen for people that had contributed to archaeological research or that had been on the society’s committee. Life-time membership would cost 50£, which would contribute directly to funding the society’s more complex activities, such as excavations. Of course, much has changed in the organisation of the OUAS since, and while the archives have not given us the answer as to what exactly had happened, we are determined to keep looking through them and find out.

As luck would have it, on the Friday of 6th week the archiving team was allowed a little treat – we were given the chance to talk to Dr. Wendy Morrison, who was the president of the OUAS for 3 years mid-2000s. She was able to give us some actual answers regarding the fate of the society, instead of the assumptions and the uncertainties that usually come up from researching the archives, which was a refreshing change for all three of us. Among many things, she has helped us organise some of the documents that were archived during her presidency, and she was kind enough to let us know what happened to the society’s tools, which were often mentioned in the past documents, but completely untraceable until now!

These past two weeks have thus been filled with uncovering more and more evidence of the meticulously nature with which past committees have organised the society, and with conversations with members of the society that have seen the OUAS in the past and have helped it not only remain active, but also grow. We, not only as archivists but also as members of the committee, cannot help but feel nostalgic and hope that we might bring back some of the things that have really defined the OUAS in its past.

 

OUAS Social Secretary,

Raluca Matei

 

Weeks 3 + 4: The Brass-Rubbing Society, Triennial dinners and an essay sent to Evans-Pritchard

Due to being unable to attend last week’s session with the archive, I have decided to write a post combining discoveries from both the latter (using information from my fellow archivists) and this week. Week 3 was mainly characterised by the uncovering of the minute books, the oldest of which dated to 1914.

We were surprised to learn that what we now know as the OUAS had originally been the Brass Rubbing Society, begun in 1893 with a purpose pertaining to: “…the study and better preservation of Monumental Brasses. During the eight years of its existence the Society has held Meetings, organised Excursions, published the two periodicals known as the Oxford Journal of Monumental Brasses, and the Oxford Portfolio of Monumental Brasses, and collected sums of money for the preservation and relaying of loose Brasses in the Diocese of Oxford.”

In 1899 the decision was made to change the name of the society to the Oxford University Antiquarian Society: “…while the study and preservation of Monumental Brasses and Slabs continue to be among its chief objects, the society also concerns itself with Architecture, Archaeology and various Antiquarian subjects.” This group considered their three main activities to be the hosting of informal meetings in college rooms for archaeological discussions; excursions to locations in and nearby Oxford; and a continuing of their contemporary publications.

Returning to the 1914 minute book, we were thrilled to see that rather than containing endless notes on society meetings, it was filled with diary-like entries of the excursions and trips the group of gentlemen (this was when membership was exclusive to men) had undertaken. There were a few splendid black-and-white images of the group posing formally in front of historic buildings, with names of individuals scrawled underneath. For example, one of these (see image above) was from an excursion to one Broughton castle on June 7th. Another showed a merry-looking party visiting Appleton Manor on May 15th, the group standing in front of the “especially fine” 12th century doorway of the building.

We intend to eventually obtain individual boxes for each of the minute books and also scan in all such photographs inside. The style of recording in these earlier books provide a highly personalised and detailed narrative of the society’s activity in the earlier decades of the 20th century. It would be very interesting to look at how we may have been affected by the onset of the First World War in 1914, and whether there is mention of these events within the archive. To find out, it will be a helpful starting point to examine and compare the pre- and post-war material.

There was also a beautifully presented, chronologically ordered box of termcards mostly dating from the 1940s through to the 1980s, with a few ‘rogue’ examples from the early 1900s and 1990s.

It has become apparent to us that the archive is partially ordered, although the extent of this is not yet clear. In other words, someone has been through it before and aimed to organise it, as we have found groups of similar material together in each box. This week, we found a document that provided proof of this. Dating to 1993, the sheet stated ‘advice’ for OUAS members working with the archive, and it seemed as though at this time OUAS members were undertaking a similar exercise to us and trying to learn more about the history of the society. Information on this project ends there, so we are very excited at the prospect of uncovering more information on what efforts have been made in the past to explore our history.

Another find was a huge envelope labelled ‘triennial dinners’, containing items ranging from menus to handwritten invitations, acceptance (and rejection) letters, and event cost assessments. This got us talking about when this grand tradition ended, into which a huge amount of work would go towards the hosting of a feast with invitations for life members and esteemed archaeologists, many of whom would give short speeches during the course of the dinner. One guest list from the 50th Anniversary Dinner in November 1969 (see image) boasted an impressive set of names: Stuart Piggott, Colin Renfrew and Christopher Hawkes were among the acceptances, and Sheppard Frere expressed his sad regrets at being unable to attend in a wonderfully eloquent apology note addressed to the society.

My favourite ‘archaeological find’ of the week however came in the form of an envelope which had been scribbled on through the years but was originally titled ‘essay’, and addressed to the eminent anthropologist and professor of Social Anthropology at Oxford from 1946-1970, E.E. Evans Pritchard. How this ended up in the OUAS archive, we have no idea (perhaps it was one of the committee that had sent the essay?) but it entertained me greatly to think about the days before email when all essays would have been sent by post; somehow this has a far more personal quality than sending a rushed 4am email attachment.

OUAS IT Rep and Archivist,

Katy Allen

Week 2: digging up traditions, excavation finds and some rather ‘retro’ technology

One box of archive down and I cannot help but feel, well, surprised. Surprised at how fruitful this project is already turning out to be in terms of the joy experienced in rummaging through old ‘stuff’ and the amount of incredibly useful information the OUAS is gaining as a result. Slowly, we will begin to fill in the (numerous) gaps in the history of our society. Some of these gaps relate to the foundations, the very bare bones of a history: names, dates and places. For example, using the membership books, minute books and other administrative documents we can now exactly reconstruct a full chronology detailing past presidents, members and excavation projects that were carried out over much of the last century.

What delights me so much about working on the archive however is being in what I conceptualise as a position of privilege.  I say this because through the process of archiving, I am gaining a sense of the real lives of these people, or at least one aspect of their lives which pertained to their enthusiastic pursual of all things archaeological. What has come across immediately is the passion and commitment thrown into happenings, and I am excited to attain a richer understanding of the past experiences of these young committee members. A certain fascination with the lives of others (or what some may call nosiness) is a typical characteristic of anyone attracted by the fields of archaeology or anthropology.

Many of our discoveries this week were of a different form to the usual stacks of papers (see images). I was thrilled to find a large box containing finds (mostly pottery) from an excavation at a site north of St. Mary’s church, Kidlington, along with an envelope containing splendid black and white photos of the trenches which had been dug by OUAS members and an extensive report detailing the finds and results of the dig. There is much unpublished material from both surveys and excavations carried out by OUAS and we fully intend to explore the possibility of publishing some of this information. We also realised that the HEIR project is in the possession of lantern slides containing images of OUAS members digging on certain sites and we look forward to utilising this as a supplementary source to the archive itself. We also found what are labelled as termcards stored on floppy disks (remember those!?). We are itching to see if the termcards have been preserved, however our first major challenge will be hunting down technology in the University capable of reading them!

Bits and pieces of the archives so far have conveyed a certain humour and warmth, outlining the paticular customs and traditions which used to be so central the society. For example, the President used to be required to give their own lecture (in place of what would normally be the invited speaker) as the last event of the term. We found a copy of a previous President’s speech (brave soul!) which we are hoping to identify the author of.

A large proportion of what we have leafed through so far has taken the form of correspondence which is inherently of a highly personal nature. From this we can see how interrelated the committee used to be with other local archaeological groups, present and past members and academics working in the archaeology and heritage fields.

What has emerged is that at some point during the 2000s, there was an epic lapse in communication during the hand-down to a new committee and knowledge of what the OUAS were supposed to be doing was lost. We are desperate to find out why and when exactly this happened. Some of our key questions are: why did we stop excavating and going on excursions? Why did we not know that we had an archive? Why were we not aware of the highly important role of the Senior Members (academics who used to be there to step in should a speaker cancel, and work with the student committee in general) or the extensive social and professional networks we had spent decades cultivating? Essentially, we want to know why so much seems to have been lost, in such a short period of time. If you were a member of the society during the late 1990s or 2000s, we would especially like to hear from you if you have any information regarding the state of affairs within the society at this time.

I would love to hear from you, so please email me at: katharine.allen@spc.ox.ac.uk

OUAS IT Rep and Archivist,

Katy Allen

Week 1: Excavation, Field Survey and Complaint Letters – our First Glimpse in the Stores

Today was an exciting day for myself and two of my fellow OUAS committee members, Fiona and Ralu. After the long wait following the inception of this blog over the winter break, I was itching to get stuck into the material and kick-start the project. We were welcomed as we entered the archaeology institute basement by the site of the archive, boxed into eight or so containers and crying out to us to give it some TLC (or so it seemed). We received an introduction to archive care 101 by the lovely staff who run an exceptional blog of their own, documenting their discoveries which have evolved into a number of highly successful, wonderful projects (see the link below).

We were encouraged to be fairly flexible and creative when it came to the sorting process, deciding to group material according to either form (e.g. correspondence letters, images, excavation reports, minute books etc.) or aspects of content (e.g. date or geographical location). And so we began to place our categorised material into the appropriate containers which would ensure a greater level of preservation. Gloves are no longer used for archiving these days, unless dealing with particularly valuable material, such as photographs. Historically they have been more destructive than using bare hands and fingers. Archiving, we were told, is like archaeology: you must sort the finds, clearly label and store them in suitable conditions and preserve the stratigraphy (or chronology!).

Now, I am super-duper keen to get stuck in with the cataloguing process and into developing an effective organisation system for the material. But our initial task, particularly in the first few weeks of the project, is merely going to involve getting a sense of what sort of stuff is actually IN the archive. I thought I’d gauged an idea of this during the summer when we poured over the society’s minute books. But today, to our delight, we uncovered the unexpected, turning out a variety of documents: a membership book with names and email addresses stretching back to 1981, a whole file full of meticulously-drawn field survey diagrams and extensive information regarding just a couple of the sites surveyed by the society (including an area of Wadham College!), fragmented maps and plans of local archaeological sites, a field survey ‘instruction sheet’, written by a committee member which outlines a procedure for identifying and carrying out surveys and a few loose documents relating to past excavations undertaken by the society. And this was all contained in less than a quarter of a single box.

Immediately, we began accumulating names that seemed to hold significance, popping up again and again. One of them, we realised quickly, had gone on to become a prevalent Anglo-Saxon archaeologist. We were excited about the other ‘big names’ within archaeology that we knew would be contained within our archive.

To clarify, the OUAS has not excavated a site in years, perhaps decades. Our primary focus in recent years has been to simply formulate a termcard which embodies the highest-quality research and developing topics and debates within the field. The archives will thus hopefully be able to inform us about when endeavours such as excavation, field survey and working closely with Oxford’s museums ceased to be central to what the OUAS did. It is my personal desire that by learning more about the sometimes- turbulent history of the society, we can be inspired to revive some of these aspects that were somewhere lost in the past.

Returning to our ‘finds’ of the day, there were also several extremely interesting pieces of correspondence. One was a letter from a representative of the Oxfordshire County Council museum’s store requesting information from the society regarding a number of objects they possessed which the society themselves had excavated at Dunston Road in 1988. There were quite a few examples of correspondence with notable institutions, showing the networking breadth and prestige the society has possessed. The most entertaining find of the day however, came in the form of a complaint letter written by a certain attendee of one of the talks hosted by the OUAS. The event had been due to start at 8pm, but to the attendee’s disgust did not begin until 8:20pm. This was due to the meal which used to be hosted for the lecturer (as a means of expressing thank you) finishing late.

After our first session it is clear that the project is going to be highly rewarding, for both ourselves on a personal level and the OUAS. We discussed our ambition to digitise the archive and it was decided we will achieve this by scanning all items and storing them in an online database. As a whole, this is going to be a relatively lengthy undertaking but certainly one we hope to be ongoing and transmitted down to the next generation of enthusiastic committee members.

Dr. Sally Crawford and Dr. Katharina Ulmschneider’s blog (the Institute archivists) can be viewed here.

OUAS IT Rep and Archivist,

Katy Allen

 

Discovering the OUAS Archives

Over the summer, I was lucky enough to undertake a three week internship at the Ashmolean Museum, attached to the University of Oxford.

During my second week, my supervisor escorted myself and another intern to the Sackler Library in order to meet with the librarian there. We were informed that he was going to show us some archive material that belonged to the Oxford University Archaeological Society. I was more than surprised to hear this – as an official OUAS committee member, I had never heard any previous mention of such a hoard. As a matter of fact, my supervisor informed me that when she enquired with the current president as to the archives whereabouts, the president had not known of their existence either.

On sight, the archive appeared to be a couple of shelves worth of books and papers, dusty and neglected in the basement of the Sackler. As we began scouring through the minute books (we were looking for particular information on excavation of a local site named Godstow Nunnery) myself and Claire, the other intern, could not help but be thoroughly compelled by the range that was contained within the archive. There were minute books going back to the 1920s; reports of excavations undertaken by the society; exhibition plans; photographs; dinner menus; amusing stories that seemed like fantasy or satire; much commentary of both social and historical significance and even love notes. What made all this even more enticing was the evident involvement by more than a few of 20th century Britain’s most significant and eminent figures in archaeology in the OUAS. We were hooked.

And thus, I made a firm promise to myself to work hard at getting the archives properly catalogued (and where possible digitised) which would allow valuable information regarding the society’s prestigious history to be preserved for all. This blog marks the beginning phase of this endeavour. I will be sharing some of the most informative, fascinating and amusing pieces of the archives for public enjoyment.

OUAS IT Rep and Archivist,

Katy Allen