Masks in the 1918 flu pandemic

Today I attended the last day of the ARA 2022 conference as a day delegate. I listened to, and tweeted, presentations on: developing Ireland's Virtual Record Treasury; archiving tributes left in public places following tragedies; cataloguing COVID-19 related materials produced for an NHS trust public inquiry archive; applying learning from the 1918 flu outbreak when archiving the COVID-19 pandemic (my blip is one of the slides from this paper); assuring authenticity of digital records; and practising 'parsimonious' digital preservation.

My own presentation came at the end of the afternoon. The two immediately before mine were both quite technical with a focus on systems, with the content pitched rather like training material. In addition, both speakers actually read their papers. In contrast, my presentation was focused on people - Lorna Lloyd and those who have recently engaged with her outputs in two digitised formats (Blipfoto journal, podcast series) - and without a written script, my delivery was more of a 'performance'.

The audience seemed to welcome the change in pace when I stepped up to the podium. The only issue is that I had to rush the last couple of slides to ensure that we kept to schedule. Most of the delegates in the room picked up a copy of Selected poems, and a few came over to me afterwards to say that they enjoyed the presentation, so I think that it went OK.

On the second of my trains home (Warrington Bank Quay to Edinburgh Waverley) another passenger joined my table, announcing that he knew my identity because he also works at the same institution as me. He was returning from a conference in Liverpool. We chatted a little and then I got back to work: burrowing through email, and preparing materials for my next conference the week after next.

Exercise today: walking (9,688 steps).