What Should We Be Collecting?

What are your ideas around the types of material that need to be collected or recorded? Here are a few areas that have been recurring in conversations on Twitter (many via #archivingthe8th) and elsewhere:

 

Visual, Performing and Literary Arts

The Artists’ Campaign to Repeal the 8th: this consortium of artists has produced an extraordinary amount of artwork and material culture related to the referendum. Will any of it wind up in our national or regional collections? What about other exhibitions, performances, etc., that might have taken place at other venues across the country?

 

Oral Histories

As oral history is not collected by the NLI (and only to a limited extent by the NMI and the National Folklore Collection, for example) how can we otherwise capture important oral histories that might better represent other dimensions of the campaign and its effect?

 

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Ephemera

The NLI often takes the lead in collecting ephemera, but their scope and capacity will be understandably limited. Where else might this material find a home (local libraries? Local authority collections? Other institutional archives?)

 

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Rural Activity

There is an inevitable tendency to focus on urban centres, so how might we diversify the representation?

 

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Events

How will (or might) we document/capture all of the events which took place as part of the 8th campaigns? This might include protests, performances, etc.

 

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Equal Representation

How can we ensure that material from both sides of the referendum campaign is collected?