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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'The First World War (1914–1918) produced an explosion of record making and record keeping, from state agencies conducting a war of unparalleled scale, to individuals and families producing testaments of experience which also often became objects of remembrance and memorialisation. The effort to document has a history; so too does the determination – or otherwise – to retain those records, organise and describe them, and provide for or otherwise deny access to them. In turn, the ways in which contemporaries recorded and then archived the First World War have powerfully shaped the kinds of histories produced over the last century. The war was being recorded and archived as it happened – and for decades after – for particular reasons and particular purposes. The processes of recording and archiving have bequeathed in different times and places alternately a very rich, very partial, and very prejudiced record of conflict and its legacies. This special issue of Archives and Manuscripts grew out of a gathering of scholars in Melbourne in 2018. The conference, hosted by the International Society for First World War Studies, took as its theme ‘Recording, narrating and archiving the First World War’. Our selection of papers from that conference revisits the creation, recreation and transmission of knowledge about the war. Together, a series of archivists and historians investigate the ways in which a war that has been so critical not only to defining the modern world, but also individual and cultural identities, has been shaped and reshaped by those who produced and archived its record for a century since 1914.' (Bart Ziino & Anne-Marie Condé, Editorial introduction)
Notes
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Contents indexed selectively.
Contents
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Archives and the Australian Great War Centenary : Retrospect and Prospect,
single work
criticism
(p. 109-122)
'Based on a keynote address to the 2018 International Society for First World War Studies conference, the author’s survey of a centenary of archival endeavour comprises four time periods and two themes. It highlights the unique role of the Australian War Memorial and its initial documentation priorities favouring Dr C.E.W. Bean’s official war history, the battlefront and the war dead. A post-centenary open-ended aftermath is also discussed covering processing backlogs, the prospective idea of ‘digital breakthrough’ and the archival implications of ever-widening understandings of the war and its endless aftermaths. The paper ends with an appeal for new voices in researching the documentation of Australia’s Great War experience.' (Publication summary)
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Recordkeeping in the First Australian Imperial Force : The Political Imperative,
single work
criticism
(p. 123-141)
'Recordkeeping systems develop under the influence of their environment. An organisation’s compilation of records, their form, content and dissemination can be in response to external factors. How the recordkeeping administration of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF) developed, expanded and changed over time is illustrative of the influences on the creation of records. The administration of the First Australian Imperial Force, including its recordkeeping, developed in an environment of heated political debate in Australia over that nation’s participation in the war and two failed attempts to introduce conscription. Circumstances in late 1915 combined to force a reluctant Australian government to intervene in the detail of AIF records administration in Egypt despite the government’s expectation that involvement at such a level in AIF management abroad would be unnecessary. This article examines the circumstances at work in Australia that led to such an intervention. It describes the events leading to the decision and traces the causes for the decision to factors in the political, social and military context.' (Publication abstract)
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Of Sentimental Value : Collecting Personal Diaries from the First World War,
single work
criticism
(p. 186-199)
'Weeks after the Armistice was declared, Principal Librarian William Ifould of the Public Library of New South Wales recommended to Library Trustees that the institution begin to collect ‘private and official documents’ produced during the war. By early December 1918, advertisements began to appear in Australian and New Zealand newspapers, encouraging returning soldiers to sell their personal diaries to the Library. Known as the European War Collecting Project, this acquisition program was the first of its kind in Australia. This paper explores the Library’s acquisition of personal diaries written by those who served and analyses the appraisal methodologies carried out by State Library staff. This case study underscores the recent archival debate which has re-assessed the role of archivists in assessment, appraisal, preservation (and privileging) of some collections over others and argues that archivists mediate and consequently shape the collections in their institutions.' (Publication abstract)
