'who's That Knocking On Our Door?': Archives, Outreach And Community

摘要

In the new vocabulary which we have all had to learn, 'outreach' must surely sit near the top of the 'most used' words in the lexicon of current archival jargon. My usual unscientific research on Google found 'outreach' linked 322,000 times with 'archives' on UK sites alone (it was 1.95 million on a worldwide search). The only puzzle to me is why it took so long to invent the word. I have been outreaching since the day when, aged 23, I reached out across the great age-divide to the assembled elderly members of one of those miraculous survivals, a literary and philosophical institute, deep in a cathedral close, and tried (somewhat pompously I fear) to introduce them to the wonders of parish register-based demographics. Three fell asleep before I started, one of them toppling over backwards in her chair. I can still visualise her, legs waving in the air like a stranded beetle. It was not an auspicious start. But it was-successful or not-outreach.