Every issue of Spare Rib available online!!

Search and Browse every edition of Spare Rib

Few titles sum up an era and a movement like Spare Rib. When the first issue came out in July 1972, many women were starting to question their position and role in society. The magazine was an active part of the emerging women's liberation movement. It challenged the stereotyping and exploitation of women in what was the first national magazine of its kind. It supported collective, realistic solutions to the hurdles women faced and reached out to women from all backgrounds. Spare Rib became the debating chamber of feminism in the UK. It continued until January 1993 and the full archive of 239 magazines provides a valuable insight into women's lives and this period of feminist activity.

access this amazing resource here

https://journalarchives.jisc.ac.uk/britishlibrary/sparerib

The Institute of Making

image: Institute of Making: silica aerogel, a glass foam whose nano-structure contains up to 99.8% air :  the world's lightest solid

The Institute of Making is a multidisciplinary research club for those interested in the made world: from makers of molecules to makers of buildings, synthetic skin to spacecraft, soup to diamonds, socks to cities. 

They run  programme of symposia, masterclasses and public events to explore the links between academic research and hands-on experience, and to celebrate the sheer joy of stuff.

Its mission is to provide all makers with a creative home in which to innovate, contemplate and understand all aspects of materials and an inspiring place to explore their relationship to making.

At the heart of the Institute of Making is the Materials Library – a growing repository of some of the most extraordinary materials on earth, gathered together for their ability to fire the imagination and advance conceptualisation. A place in which makers from all disciplines can see, touch, research and discuss, so that they can apply the knowledge and experience gained to their own practice.

Alongside the collection is the MakeSpace – a workshop where members and guests can make, break, design and combine both advanced and traditional tools, techniques and materials.

taken from their website

thank you Ingrid for the introduction!

Images help us 'see': The Refugee Project: an interactive map

photo by Heaferl: Demo "Gleiche Rechte für alle" (Refugee-Solidaritätsdemo) am 16. Februar 2013 in Wien
	'Every day, all over the world, ordinary people must flee their homes for fear of death or persecution. Many leave without notice, taking only what they can carry. Many will never return

They cross oceans and minefields, they risk their lives and their futures. When they cross international borders they are called refugees.
The Refugee Project is an interactive map of refugee migrations around the world in each year since 1975. UN data is complemented by original histories of the major refugee crises of the last four decades, situated in their individual contexts'.

The Refugee Project
http://www.therefugeeproject.org/

(Best viewed in Chrome and Firefox)

Click the About tab (top right ) to read  how to navigate the map. 

You will discover where refugees come from, where they go and articles documenting their stories and the political contexts to their plight.

Family Photo archive, a new addition to the Library at the Bishopsgate Institute

Lucy feeding the pigeons in Trafalgar Square in 1981

There is to be a place in London where old family photos will be collected for researchers to view. News in from Spitalfields Life the wonderful daily blog by the Gentle Author (check it out!) tells us that Stefan Dickers, Archivist at the Bishopsgate Institute is offering a home to unwanted albums and family photographs, where they will be safely stored as an archive. It is to be called the London Family Photo Archive . He is happy to take receipt of  digital copies of photographs if you wish to keep the prints.
“We are looking for family and personal photos of everyday life, no matter if you have lived in London since birth or are a recent arrival to the city,” Stefan explained to me, “We are also looking for photos that depict Londoners on day trips and holidays outside of the city.”
If you might wish to contribute albums or pictures and would like to know more please contact library@bishopsgate.org.uk

This sounds like a wonderful resource in the making....and look at what else they have!
Since opening in 1895, Bishopsgate Library has built up through its collecting policy a record of the development of photography in the capital, alongside it's ever growing collections of books, maps, directories and press cuttings. The emphasis is on the everyday life of London and the Library has specialised in collecting street photography and social and cultural images of London, rather than portraiture or people. The collections are also not limited to famous photographers.
Library Collections cover London History, Labour and Socialist History, Freethought and Humanism, Co-opertaion, Protest and Campaigning, Parliamentary profiles and they hold the Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia archive

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Lights Out on August 4th

“The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime” Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, August 1914

National Library of Wales Cymru 1914 archive

Everyone in the UK is invited to take part in LIGHTS OUT by turning off their lights from 10pm to 11pm on 4 August, leaving on a single light or candle to mark the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War .

Millions of people are expected to participate and hundreds of local authorities, iconic buildings, national organisations including the BBC and the Royal British Legion, parish councils and places of worship have already pledged their support. Iconic landmarks such Blackpool Illuminations, the Houses of Parliament, Eden Project, Imperial War Museums and Tower Bridge will turn off their lights; the Royal British Legion has launched a campaign for at least one million candles to be lit across the UK and theatre productions including those of the National Theatre’s War Horse, both nationally and internationally, will invite their audiences to take part in LIGHTS OUT after their curtain calls.

 Leading international artists have been commissioned by 14-18 NOW to create special public artworks, for one night only in the form of a light source.

Bedwyr Williams’ work Traw will be a large-scale video and sound installation  at the site of the North Wales Memorial Arch, Bangor. The memorial takes centre stage in front of images projected onto the enormous facing wall of Bangor University’s new Pontio Arts and Innovation Centre.

Taking photographs found in the Cymru 1914 archive, Williams has created a sequence of images of local soldiers and civilians   affected by WW1. Excluding all uniform and references to rank, the close up faces reveal something of the individual’s personality and personal sacrifice in a war where death was measured in millions.

Bedwyr Williams is one of Wales’ leading visual artists. In 2013 he represented Wales at the Venice Biennale.

Commenting on the project Bedwyr Williams said: “As a young art student I walked past the memorial arch in Bangor many times and I have to admit that I never gave it a huge amount of thought. Working on this project I’ll never be able to walk past this place again without thinking of the lives lost fighting in the First World War.”

Pathe News on Youtube

Pathe News Inc.

In 1895 Charles Pathé began his quest to document the historical events of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. By 1914, Pathé produced the first weekly newsreel.
British Pathé, the U.K. newsreel archive company, has uploaded its entire 100-year collection of 85,000 historic films in high resolution to YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/user/britishpathe

The collection, which spans 1896 to 1976, comprises some 3,500 hours of historical footage of major events, notable figures, fashion, travel, sports and culture. It includes extensive film from both World War I and World War II.
The Home page displays a choice of popular uploads, days that shook the world, disasters, inventions, animals, daredevils, celebrities and  compilations.  'Weirdest newsreels' includes a newsreel about a progressive school , a tall man marrying a short lady and  an obese three year old . In contrast you can also find footage from the Battle of the Somme , the SAS storming the Iranian Embassy in London and a documentary on the assassination of the American President John F Kennedy claiming the CIA killed him.

How we view Civil Rights, the images, the meanings and the roles of photography

Human Rights Human Wrongs 5.45pm 5 March 2014 at the National Museum Cardiff in the Reardon Smith lecture theatre

Bob Fitch, Martin L. King (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.),

Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America,

December 1965.

Reproduction from the Black Star Collection,

Ryerson University. Courtesy of the Ryerson Image Centre.

Using the 1948 Universal Declaration of human rights as a point of departure, Mark Sealy, MBE, RPS Hood Medal, Director Autograph ABP and Founding CEO of Rivington Place London, examines whether images of political struggle, suffering, and of victims of violence work for or against humanitarian objectives, especially when considering questions of race, representation, ethical responsibility and the cultural position of the photographer.

The talk will reflect on the imagery that has informed perceptions of civil rights, ranging from historic events such as the Selma to Montgomery March and Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech, to the independence movements in many African countries as well as more recent examples of injustice within wider global conflicts. Here the historical and contemporary roles of photography to validate and question the case for civil and human rights will be examined from different perspectives.

The event is FREE but booking is essential as places are limited.

This lecture forms part of a series accompanying a project by  National Museum Wales to work on its rich and diverse historic photographic collections

To reserve your place,  email: Historic.Photography@museumwales.ac.uk

with your name and contact telephone number.

London Sound Survey-Sounds of London

http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/projects/12_tones_intro/

There are over 1,000 recordings of London life on the London Sound Survey website, plus sound maps, historical references to past London sounds, and some original 1930s and 1940s radio broadcasts. 

All the recordings (which are safely stored in the sound cloud )are Creative Commons-licensed which makes them available for NON-COMMERCIAL USE ONLY. All you have to do under the terms of the license is include an acknowledgement and a link to the London Sound Survey website at www.soundsurvey.org.uk.

Elements from the  London Sound Survey also feature  on These Are The Good Times LP published on the Vittelli label  and on  issue 6 of An Antidote To Indifference.

Ian Rawes who compiled the The London Sound Survey works at the British Library sound archive and this collection of sounds  is the result of his explorations of the world of Field recordings and acoustic ecologists . His own recordings employ a variety of professional, home made, and adapted devices .

Other websites featuring different ways of perceiving 'the city'
 urban75, Classic Cafes, Derelict London, Subterranea Britannica and Spitalfields Life



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Alinari online-free to explore

"Dreaming of pirates", Terrazza Mascagni, Livorno

Photographer: Vestrini, Michele

Date of photography: 1958

Alinari black and white photographs were used by art historians before the days of good quality colour reproductions in books so that they could  view the representations of buildings and works of art that the Italian company photographed. Art history departments bought them for study-put on reserve and/or available for browsing always as representations of a building or a painting, not seen then as interesting as examples of photography.

Over 167,000 photographs have now been digitised and are available on subscription as Alinari 24 Ore to individuals and Institutions at a reasonable price.

Subject areas which would find these images useful as well as art and architectural history include cultural studies,  history, economics, sociology and science. It is also possible to search by photographer’s name.

You  may be interested in the free access for educational use. The database can be searched and images have a small watermark on them (as in the image above) until you buy the image or subscribe.

Look here for details.

what we thought in the 80's

Observing the 80’s

Insights into the social history and cultural change of those living in the 1980s give a fascinating overview of life in Thatcher’s Britain.

The Observing the 80’s project at the University of Sussex, funded by Jisc, collates first-hand accounts, written by volunteers, of their daily lives and views which were collected throughout the decade as part of the Mass Observation Archive. This material offers a unique and inspiring insight into the lives and opinions of British people from all social classes and regions during the 80s period.

Observing the 1980s brings together, for the first time, ‘voices’ from both the Mass Observation Collections and the British Library Oral History Collections. This material offers a unique and inspiring insight into the lives and opinions of British people from all social classes and regions during the 1980s.

The project is explained in the video above

A Guide to using the resources here

The infographics are particularly nice