ABSTRACT
Is an archive a particular kind of place, a collection of connected items, a system of classification imbued with power relations, or something else again? What is it that people do, when they’re doing archival research? Is there a particular archival methodology, or is this actually the same as reading books in a library? In what ways can the small parts of a collection – individual letters, photographs or other items – be related to a whole thing and to the wider context these traces of the past were part of? How can collections, sometimes huge in size, be made sense of and used to explore specific research questions? What does good archival research look like and what distinguishes it from the not so good?
