This was a day of talks, workshops and networking opportunities for art and design PhD students at the British Library to introduce the research materials available at the Library.
After a general introduction to the Library and its collections we attended two curator sessions from a choice of eight. The collections are vast and include art, music, British newspapers from 1600 to 1900, a sound archive, catalogues from auction sales, websites and patents and various guides to setting up your own business.
The first curator session I chose was Graphic Art because it sounded as if it would cover a wide range of material. We were shown some interesting antique books and paintings including an illustrated collection of the fortifications in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, drawings and etchings of Scotland and Surrey, and etchings of the colleges in Oxford. The curator explained that you should start your search in the integrated catalogue and make it as wide as possible. She guided us through several searches which emphasised how complicated the process of finding what you want can be.
The second curator session I attended was about the Oral History collection. I found this more relevant and interesting probably because we started by saying what we were all researching which gave the curator an idea of what we were interested in. My net curtain research appealed to him and he used that as a search example which was very useful for me. Several people were interested in conducting interviews as part of their research so they were given some tips and also told that the BL runs a series of workshops to help you get started. Most of the recordings have been collected since the second world war but the people being interviewed are all asked about their memories of their parents and grandparents so in that way the collection also deals with an earlier period. If the recording you want is not available for listening you have to order it which takes about 2 weeks. Many also have transcripts. The sound archive is also worth searching www.bl.uk/sounds
No comments:
Post a Comment