You know when somebody comes up with a statement and, later on you think of the perfect answer but, by then, it is far too late….. this is the one I was given together with what I should have said
You know, when I started working at the history centre, I thought I would much prefer working in the library, but I’ve really like working with the archives.
Yes, who can resist historic old documents, plus the very old books in the bookstore. But it is very hard work. Somebody might have done all of the hard graft already and, if they have, the answer would be in local studies.
Of course, the bibles of local history are the ones that you always refer too, such as The History of Slough by Maxwell Fraser. Though the real gems to less common answers, I often found, were in the journals written by enthusiastic historians – some of which go back to the nineteenth century. In those days, unless catalogued, indexed separately or browsed through by curious library staff, they just sat there gathering dust.
Imagine my delight when, being lazy, I did a google search for a 1930s map I once saw, and up came this…..
BLHA had digitised the vast majority of their journals, the articles are all searchable and can all be found by Google (or your own Google custom search engine or a site search e.g. by putting slough site:blha.org.uk into your google search box).
I won’t tell you how happy I was to see that Buckinghamshire Archaeological Society have gone back to 1854……..
[Thanks to their volunteers, John Dodd, Peter Marsden, Jeff Pepper, Ken Wallis and Marion Wells, who have heroically digitised 35 of the 43 volumes so far!]
But Records of Bucks hasn’t stopped there – they have an index with hot links to the digitised articles!
Of course, it has only taken eight years to come up with this very long riposte to that pro-archives comment. But, if the person who said that statement ever stumbles over these words, I hope I have gone a little way to change their mind.
CILIP Local Studies Group 