Back at work today @bexleyarchives.bsky.social with my impressive stash of Ancestry goodies and full of bright ideas from the Archives and Records Association Conference @araukie.bsky.social #ARA2025

Cardboard box with large holes in the top.

Open cardboard box with various fabrics inside it.

During the #ARA2025 conference, the keynote speech was on multisensory archives. Rosie spent some time reaching into this box and describing what she could feel to colleagues!

Home from #ARA2025 and I have some reflections on why I think it is beneficial attending conferences once in a while (and why I love going to @araconference.bsky.social). These are personal observations, you might not agree, and that’s fine. If that is the case, please share your thoughts. 1/7

Opened my fortune cooking from the keynote session this morning. “You will soon witness a special ceremony.” That will be the #ARA2025 Plenary then. Another great conference coming to an end.

Last night it was the #ARA2025 ✨Gala dinner and ARA Excellence Awards!✨
Huge congratulations to P&CG chair Shirley Jones, who was awarded for her ‘Distinguished Service in Conservation’, and to Rhydian Davis who has achieved his certificate for the Archive Conservation Training Scheme! 🎉

The final session in Track B at #ARA2025:
🇳🇿 Learning from the Christchurch disasters of 2011 and 2015 by Lynn Campbell
🖥️ Facing the future with Amy Sampson and Pedro Maximo Rocha
💨 Storage Environmental Close Control Issues by Richard Aitken
🎛️ HVAC shutdown and alternative methods by Ann Attwood

ARA 2025 Annual Dinner and Excellence Awards PowerPoint slide.

Last night at the #ARA2025 conference there was a gala dinner and awards ceremony. Huge congratulations to Gloucestershire Archives on winning Record-Keeping Service of the Year!

If you've made it this far through #ARA2025 do join us after lunch for an introduction to our International Group, what we do and hope to do, and what's coming up next for us! 🌍

Why records surveys matter - Fiona Bourne from RCN sums it up record surveys = knowledge-organisational mapping, departmental analysis, records discovery, management, retention #ARA2025

Going live soon!

Join us for Forming International Connections at #ARA2025 Session D9 at 2:05 PM BST. Let’s talk about building a stronger global archives community. 🌍

#InternationalArchives #ARAConference

B8 Panel Session at #ARA2025 is focusing on ‘Life After Hanwell’, hosted by Elizabeth Stettler, Pedro Maximo Rocha, Rhiannon Griffiths and Richard Aitken

Final day of #ARA2025 has started with a truly inspiring keynote "Archives for All!" from purpleSTARS, all about multi sensory approaches to heritage collections. Something we should really incorporate a lot more of where possible and seek opportunities!

A small piece of paper on a dark tablecloth

Starting with a great sensory exercise from PurpleStarz to get us going this morning. Our description of this paper: glossy, clicky, paper #ARA2025

The final day of #ARA2025 is underway, with Dr Kate Allen, Ajay Choksi, Samantha Walker and Victoria Stevens leading an interactive keynote: ‘Archives for All! A Multisensory Approach to Archive Collections’

Wednesday afternoon wrapped up with a thought provoking workshop hosted by Ann Attwood, asking ‘What is archive conservation in 2025? #ARA2025

More Track B talks on Wednesday afternoon #ARA2025:
✂️ Laura Anderson talked about her experiences on ACTS
📚 Ann-Marie Miller & Chloe Tse discussed conserving mould damaged stationary bindings
🖌️ ‘Off the Wall’ with Shirley Jones, who was talking about collaborate training with wallpaper restorers

Enjoying a dip in the conservation stream! These are favourite, can't do without and wish list kit #ARA2025 sewing machine, box maker, buffalo Koran spatula, magnets, cats whiskers, porcupine quills, hobo Bluetooth data loggers, large sheets of perspex (and Instagram - sorry Bluesky!)

Two papers this afternoon reinforce messages from earlier that there needs to be active intention to create genuine inclusively of archives & for the users of archives - looking at intergenerational practices as well as radical softness & "slow archives" speakers: Chloe Lee & Nella McNicol #ARA2025

This is really practical and promising. (But if anyone's ever tried to manage files on a 1990s Plasmon Data Store, do let Jan know, that one is... going to take some time.) #ARA2025

Oldham was an early user of the kit, setting up DAR and finally able to access born-digital material on hard drives blocked under IT policies #ARA2025

Kits sat with each partner for a month for familiarisation and confidence building: not trying to fix everything at once, but to create support and experience #ARA2025

Created (with TNA resilience funding) shared travelling digital preservation kits: accessing redundant media, open source software, and partnership support with some central resources. #ARA2025

Last talk in this session is shared Greater Manchester partnership work on practical digital preservation. An example of partnership with a central lead across multiple archive services. DP is currently top priority in partner plan #ARA2025

Using digital forensics tool experimentally to support appraisal. Early days, but promising to a point (and lots of functionality that won't be used, hmm) #ARA2025

And they have got improvements in DPC RAM assessment into performance assessment, which is great work for an organisation improving incrementally. CTS next, maybe. #ARA2025

There's also a strong focus on donor and depositor liaison, doing a lot of pre-transfer work, even some donors fully bagging material for transfer. Interesting to hear about increasing donor confidence here. Helps to preserve non-Latin characters and thus meaning of Irish language material #ARA2025

It's a standards-based approach in part because the teams involved are very mixed and you need a solid framework to apply across people with different experience and skills #ARA2025

Now onto National Library of Ireland, hearing updates on taking steps to implement their digital preservation policy. Liking the practical turn of this session, some useful case studies. #ARA2025

Hoping to move to a more self-serve transfer approach alongside staff training, support and refreshed superuser programme. #ARA2025

Streamlined transfer processes worked pretty well overall, able to create bulk accession records, dealing quickly with obsolete Sharepoint sites. But it's reliant on good file structures in those sites... which means tech is not the only issue. It's about culture and people. #ARA2025