Friday 22 October 2010

The archive

Our book and exhibition have mostly focused (but not entirely) on the oral history but what about our archive?


It is currently (October 2010) in the CAPS basement which is not ideal - a flood could destory a lot of it and it isn't very accessible either. So we are thinking about where to keep it in the longer-term. 

It consists of all kinds of printed materials - minutes of meetings, reports, newsletters, posters, letters, bills, draft articles, expense sheets... and a lot more.

Survivors Speak Out newsletter from the 1980s
We have some non-paper based items - the t-shirts which had been on display at the exhibition, for instance. And the tulip you might be able to see to the left of the photo - that was a present from a Dutch user group, and for a while was used to show who had the right to speak at EUF meetings. 

Kirsten and Jim are the main people who have worked on the archive over the past couple of years. There is a lot involved in sorting through an archive. 

is this bit of paper worth keeping? where does it fit? what year is it from? 

Kirsten has had a lot of advice from the Lothian Health Services Archive, based at the University of Edinburgh Library, and we have been using a version of their cataloguing system. 

Despite having such a lot of paper to deal with, we are still looking for new items. We would really love to get photos, posters, personal accounts... If you have something you think might interest us, please email Kirsten at kirsten@capsadvocacy.org 

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