Heritage and History in Plymouth

Talking digital heritage

Last Monday the Plymouth and West Devon Record Office celebrated their 60th anniversary with a Future of Heritage conference at Plymouth’s Guildhall. I was invited to talk about digital heritage and with the promise of a celebration cake needed no further inducement!

Went the day well?

A good variety of speakers and a not overly local focus made the day interesting for locals and visitors alike. We did have problems with the venue’s acoustics – probably the first time people couldn’t hear me!

A display of documents and images from the city records was added interest. I enjoyed the display of photos of Plymouth’s transport over the decades.

One thing that stood out was referring to records as the raw material of history. A good phrase capturing an important concept.

My bit!

I spoke about the practically of heritage data and communications via digital platforms. I focussed my talk by quoting the title of  Nick Poole’s fine blog post on digitisation and it’s merits.

And finally

At the end of the day as well as catching up with Plymouth based colleagues Louisa presented me with a card and a limited edition Toblerone. I’d never had a tangible thank you for speaking before so it was a lovely surprise!

The celebration cake was very good and we all liked the archives theme to it!

Celebration cake cut