[SSC] Fw: Ruskin College Archive under threat - Write First Time

[Sandie Stratford]

I thought this action might interest you all.
Sandie

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Hamilton, Mary 
To: RAPALLIST at JISCMAIL.AC.UK 
Sent: Thursday, October 11, 2012 1:27 PM
Subject: FW: Ruskin College Archive under threat - Write First Time


Dear RaPAL Members and friends, 

I have just received an email from Ursula Howard (see below) with this worrying news. Some of you may have seen the letter in the Guardian signed by several academics and friends of Ruskin on Monday this week (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/oct/08/ruskin-college-cultural-legacy-at-risk.

If any of you were able to email or otherwise contact the Principal of Ruskin College, Audrey Mullender, about the safety of the archive, it would be great [enquiries at ruskin.ac.uk]. There is also a petition to sign below.

This issue is especially important to us as the Write First Time Archive is housed at Ruskin. Other fragile archives are also at risk nationally. Recently, for example, the archive of the Language and Literacy Unit at Southbank University was narrowly saved from destruction.

Ursula's message explains

The archives of Ruskin College, pioneer institution of working-class
education, have been partly destroyed, on the instructions of the
college principal and despite protests and an offer from the Bishopsgate
Institute to take everything. What remains may still be at risk. 

Hilda Kean writes in an article on the History Workshop website 'Papers have not gone to a landfill site but have been specifically destroyed. Even the removal firm seemed puzzled and sought clarification from the principal who allegedly confirmed that indeed such material
must be destroyed.' 

Please read Hilda's article for more information if you have time
http://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/whose-archive-whose-history-destruction-of-archives-at-ruskin-college-oxford/

And please urgently sign and publicize the petition at:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/120/368/331/stop-further-archive-destruction-a%0At-ruskin-college-oxford/  

If anyone is interested in taking up the issue of how to secure the future of this and similar archives please let me know - I will try and get a group of people together to work on this.
All the best
Mary






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