Serendipity in the Archives

03 Sep 2008

The unexpected discovery always having been a favourite topic of mine, I was excited to see that Archives for London are holding an event tomorrow evening called 'Serendipity in the Archives', that will "look at the role of chance in what we find in London's Archives".

Coincidentally, the flyer for this event arrived in my inbox just a few days after I had been reading a blog post by Mary Beard on a similar topic - the unexpected discoveries afforded by 'bound with' rare books and pamphlets. These are occasions where you request to view one title only to find that another item, sometimes completely unrelated in subject, has been 'bound with' it in the same volume. We have many such items in our rare book collection, and they do always feel like discoveries waiting to happen - even if they can be a bit tricky for library staff to locate.
 
The Archives for London event is on at 6pm tomorrow (Thursday 4 September) at the London Metropolitan Archives, with speakers from The Women's Library and Black Cultural Archives as well as professional researchers and historians.

Renee (Digital Resources Librarian)