Traditionally around this time people start looking back, trying to sum up what happened over the past twelve months in politics, culture, society, or their own lives. I also find people I know outside work still regularly ask me what I actually do. Sometimes repeatedly. After all, I am a ‘Research Archivist’ not connected to a specific repository, working in a research centre which is part of a university library. So what is it I actually did in 2012?

First, and perhaps most significantly, since April I have been the National Program Manager for the Find & Connect web resource. Funded by the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA), we have three senior academics (from archives/cultural informatics, history, and social work), historians in every state and territory, plus a National Editor, Client Liaison Officer, Communications Officer, and Database Manager, all working on a constantly evolving web resource for Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants, and anyone with an interest in out-of-home ‘care’ in Australia.

The intention is to document every organisation which provided out-of-home ‘care’ across the country, along with related archival collections and series, record holding institutions, publications, photographs, legislation and key events. We hope to do so in a systematic, structured, standards-based way to help Forgotten Australians, Former Child Migrants and others understand the historical context of their time in ‘care’, and to provide sustainable information and contact details which will allow them to start the search for records. It is, we believe, the largest non-military government funded public history project in Australia. Open, digital, community-focused humanities.

As part of the project we work closely with stakeholders – including care leavers, governments, record holders, former care providers, libraries, archives and more – answer feedback, and hold meetings in every state and territory capital. In 2012 we have also run web usability sessions (we’re still working on implementing the findings), and continue to develop and refine the way we describe archives, collections and institutions to ensure our informatics are sound and sustainable. It is an enormous task.

Related to this work, I was involved in running training sessions and preparing tools and supporting material for the Records Access Documentation Project (RADP), also funded by FaHCSIA. Twenty-nine organisations received grants to help improve the discoverability and accessibility of the records of Forgotten Australians and Former Child Migrants. We developed, built and rolled out an Excel indexing tool which would allow organisations to record series, inventory and related indexing terms to assist in search and retrieval, along with training videos and documentation. And we have started developing a generic tool called DORA (Documenting Records and Archives) for use by other organisations who need a light-weight archival listing tool.

I was also involved in managing the Saulwick Polls & Social Research project which has resulted in a web resource (launched in November) for exploring the work and archives of Irving Saulwick, including links to data sets held by the Australian Data Archive. And, after a great deal of work (for which I can only take a small part of the credit), we resurrected a 1981 digital sample of the hard-copy Wilfred Prest’s University of Melbourne Social Survey, 1941-1943 and have made this data available via the Australian Data Archive.

Colleagues and I worked with The Australian Ballet to start improving their internal archives and records management, which included some wonderful experiences exploring their history and collections, and a memorable visit to their set and costume store in Kensington. And for various intensive periods throughout the year I have been working on Building Futures for Young Australians at Risk: a co-ordinated measurement framework and data archive to help develop and build the tools required to create a persistent national evidence base for assisting young Australians at risk of dropping out of formal education and not making the transition from school to employment.

I also gave a bunch of papers and presentations which have taken me around the world and back, including:

  • Jones, Michael, and Antonina Lewis, ‘As Curious An Entity: Building digital resources from context, records and data’, Digital Humanities Australasia 2012: Building, Mapping, Connecting, Canberra, March 2012.
  • Jones, Michael and Gavan McCarthy, ‘Three Layers: Investigating the potential of data, records and context’, on Friday 8 June 2012 in ‘Accessing Historic Records using Modern Tools’, Data Science for a Connected World: Unlocking and Harnessing the Powers of Information, IASSIST 2012, 38th Annual Conference, Washington, DC June 4-8, 2012,International Association for Social Science Information Services & Technology.
  • McCarthy, Gavan; Michael Jones; Richard Vines and Antonina Lewis, ‘Context Entity Analysis: Using public domain knowledge to build information infrastructure’, Knowledge Cities World Summit, Italy, June 2012.
  • Jones, Michael and Gavan McCarthy, ‘Making Sense of the Past: Reconnecting through Records‘, Oxford University Centre for the History of Childhood, Day Conference:Childhood and Loss, Oxford University 30 June 2012 [Invited paper]
  • Jones, Michael and Gavan McCarthy, ‘The Pathways Project: Underpinning Principles‘,Find and Connect Seminar Series – Sharing and Reflecting on the Australian Experience of Supporting Care Leavers Access Records, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, 2 July 2012 [Invited paper]
  • Jones, Michael, ‘“Encountering the Stranger”: Working digitally to connect records and data for communities,’ International Council on Archives Congress, Brisbane, Australia, 2012. http://www.ica2012.com/files/data/Full%20papers%20upload/ica12Final00278.pdf (My paper starts on page 11.)

I wrote specifications for the Public Record Office Victoria, sat on the Advisory Group for the University of Melbourne’s data management and digital archives strategy, presented Research Data Management for the Humanities sessions to post-grads, attended workshops, conferences and presentations, tweeted regularly (@mikejonesmelb), and helped find and develop a bunch of exciting new work which will hopefully come to fruition over the next year or two.

Plus, as is always the case, there are a whole pile of other projects and activities which I’ve left out: providing input to the development of new visualisation tools and image viewers; assisting community archives; working with researchers on data preservation and archiving; and more.

Finally, I launched Context Junky, to try and keep some reflective headspace while working through the final stages of a huge, hectic twelve months. Thanks to all those who have visited so far.

Have a safe and relaxing Christmas and New Year break, and I’ll see you in 2013.