{"id":343,"date":"2015-11-27T10:18:14","date_gmt":"2015-11-27T10:18:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/?p=343"},"modified":"2022-04-13T14:06:50","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T14:06:50","slug":"how-archivists-can-make-an-unconventional-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/cuarm\/how-archivists-can-make-an-unconventional-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"How archivists can make an unconventional Impact\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week we thoroughly enjoyed tweeting a number of images\u00a0for #explorearchives, and seeing all the fabulous documents and ideas from other repositories. Interestingly, our most popular contribution (apart from a random photo of my cat posted for #archiveanimals!)\u00a0was a short piece on our blog about how University institutional archives can be used by different categories of researchers<\/a>. We\u2019ve decided to follow this up with this post about how archivists are in a\u00a0unique position to help researchers further because of our\u00a0long experience\u00a0of audience development.<\/p>\n

Although I was aware of the need for academics to provide evidence of the impact their work has outside academia, I\u2019ve only recently realised the particular value of archivists to this area. Most archivists take for granted the need to show that archives have ever-widening audiences and that there is a value beyond the \u201ctraditional\u201d use to different communities. During my many years spent in a local government environment it was second nature to gather statistics about group talks, visitor numbers, website hits, numbers of enquiries, alongside case studies of the positive effects on society in general. Every year archive services compete against other departments for ever decreasing funding and have to prove that they have their worth alongside Social Services, leisure centres and the pothole repair fund to receive their share of the budget.<\/p>\n

This means that archivists are very good at looking at ways of reaching non-users, developing audiences, increasing public engagement and showing the worth of archives in improving quality of life and encouraging creative output for many different groups, even those without a heritage focus.\u00a0 (Anyone who has ever worked on an HLF project will have these objectives engraved on their hearts!)\u00a0 Our experience in this area can be shared with academics, many of whom may not be as aware of potential community groups and unconventional uses. \u00a0Some of the projects (or potential projects that didn’t quite make it) that I\u2019ve been involved with over the years\u00a0have used archives in areas such as:<\/p>\n