Edward Coffey's Blog

The urge to preserve the recorded artefacts from our ancestors is basic – the stories we tell to keep their memories alive are so much more vibrant, and more easily recalled and re-told when they’re anchored to a photo, a video or a letter. But how do we collect and preserve all that data: the photos, the letters, the videos, the documents and emails? My father’s father left behind precious little in the way of recorded information – to my knowledge there’s a handful of photos and a letter he wrote to my uncle, which I’ve seen but not read. No doubt there is more, but not substantially so. It’s a simple decision for those who possess these artefacts to preserve them all, to the greatest degree practical. No need to organise and catalogue the contents – there is just so little there to preserve. But things are changing. Continue reading →