Greetings! My name is Beatrice and I am a third year student at UBC working towards an Honours degree in English Literature and a minor in French. This is my very first blog ever, so thanks in advance for your patience if it takes me a few posts to develop a suitable voice. Hello blogosphere!

What drew me to a course in archival studies was my family’s interest in all things historical. The highlight of our summer road trips have always been visits to museums of natural history, aviation centers, or war memorials. We would spend hours contentedly perusing every display in the quiet, air-conditioned collections of whichever small town we happened to come across. No Disneyland, much to the chagrin of my younger brother.

These experiences, while inculcating an appreciation for history, also raised questions about archiving and cataloguing. What do those cryptic serial numbers at the end of each description signify? How do curators come to the conclusions they share in the display descriptions? Which items are kept hidden from the public eye? In what ways do the sociocultural values of the archivists themselves influence how items are preserved or represented? What do archivists do when they encounter fragments or illegible handwriting? How do they work around this lost or silent space? What assumptions are made?

Having thus far been stuck on the “outside” of the glass, I chose this seminar because it will afford me a unique opportunity to come into close contact with the objects themselves. Being an auditory and haptic learner, I am interested in exploring the preservation of sound and the material history of the artefacts—with particular attention to their modes of production as well as how people are connected through a single object.

It is with great anticipation that I look forward to the discoveries that will be made in and by this class, and I hope to share mine with you through this little online archive.

Cheers,

Beatrice