A popular part of the past History Day events has been the inside look at research institutions and resources offered by expert speakers. This History Day is no different and the panel sessions are all set with some tickets still available.
If you have ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in bibliographic services in a library, this is your chance. Cataloguer Alison Gage of Senate House Library and Collection Librarian Michael Townsend of the Institute of History Research Library will talk about how books wind up where they do. Michael and Alison will be joined by Senate House Library’s Dr Richard Espley, who recently tweeted the question asking whether librarians are evil, lazy or really busy. (Maybe this talk will provide the answer). Richard will discuss uncatalogued collections, or those hidden materials awaiting discovery. Panel chair Dr Nick Barratt of Senate House Library will moderate the panel and encourage your participation so have your questions ready and make sure to ask Alison about gender bias in library classification systems!
The next session will tackle the ins and outs of archives, both from an archivist’s point of view, thanks to the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies’ Dr Ruth Frendo, and from an archival researcher’s point of view, thanks to Dr Adam Chapman of the Victoria County History in the Institute of Historical Research. Dr Christopher Lewis of King’s College London will chair this panel, raising the curtain on what goes in to archives and why, and how best to find and use their wonderful contents.
The Institute of Historical Research Digital team will fill you in on everything you want to know about digital resources. Would you like to become a more proficient user of the Bibliography of British and Irish History and pick up knowledge about thesauri at the same time? Would you like to learn about British History Online? Or maybe you would like to know more about web archives? All of these topics, plus others, will be discussed by Sarah Milligan, Jonathan Blaney and Simon Baker, with Professor Jane Winters of the IHR chairing the panel.
Are you looking for insight into finding and using North American resources in London for your own research? Thanks to panel chair Dr Janet Floyd of King’s College London, this session will be of great interest to you. I have the privilege of joining Janet, Jenny Essen of King’s College London and Laura Farnworth, the Artistic Director of Undercurrent Theatre, to talk about some specific primary sources that have informed all of our research on North American History.
If you are unable to attend, many of the talks will be recorded and available on this website after History Day. You can also follow the talks on Twitter under the hashtag #HistDay15. Even feel free to tweet questions to the panels using #HistDay15.