Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future

28working with the real materials cannot be underestimated,and can potentially be provided through the existingnetwork of local authority archives. Specialist repositoriesare also well placed to provide diverse content for teachingmaterials to engage teachers and thereby young users.Innovative content and projects are already being deliveredby a number of archive services through the provision ofin-service training, teachers’ packs, homework clubs,outreach activities, targeted projects and visits. Building onthis investment and releasing the learning potential of theUK’s archives will require advocating the role of archivesin teaching programmes with educators and teachers.Engaging teachers and lecturers in the selection andinterpretation process provides opportunities for continuingprofessional development. Raising awareness of archivesas a teaching tool to trainee teachers is crucial, as isestablishing partnerships with schools and otherinstitutions in order to trial resource packs and teachingsessions. To maximise the learning and education potentialof archives will require the establishment of a programmeof advocacy, information and training to raise awarenessamong teaching staff of the potential of archival materialto support the curriculum.A community archives service should be focused verystrongly around community use and identity as well asindividual users and lifelong learning. It will become amajor vehicle to push forward the part that archives canplay in promoting social inclusion, citizenship and socialjustice by using the examples in archives to illuminatecontemporary issues. It will be a place where keepers andmanagers of community-based collections of documents,photographs, and moving image and sound recordingsdraw attention to their archives and where users will beable to search through linked and cross-related contentsets. Interactive facilities will guide and help people torecord their stories and memories. Those interested in thearchives of particular communities will find them allelectronically co-located. The Task Force wishes to engagewith grassroots history and its under-resourcing byinviting those involved to share their experiences, theirenthusiasms, their histories and the digitised contentof their collections in community archives.Commanet, the community archive network serves as a recordof cultural history. Photo: Batley Community ArchiveEngaging Creative CommunitiesCommanet was set up in 2000 to enable communities tocreate their own archives and publish these in digital form.Using basic IT equipment and COMMA, an easy-to-usesoftware package, groups can digitise and storephotographic and video images, text and oral narratives.These databases are published in CD-ROM and onthe Commanet website (www.commanet.org). More than200 projects are underway in the UK, mostly fundedthrough the Lottery Awards for All scheme and basedin community centres, schools, libraries and museums.These projects are successful both in terms ofsustainability and in attracting people who might notusually get involved with formal cultural institutions.The idea for COMMA and Commanet grew out of a localhistory project in Batley, West Yorkshire, where teacherChris Levack assembled a photocopy archive of 5,000family photos brought in by local people. COMMA softwarewas developed by Polkaville, a local software co-operative.Public bodies are increasingly using community archivesto engage with local communities. Examples includeprojects run by the Children’s Society, the National RailwayMuseum, Norfolk Adult Education Department andCHIN (Canadian Heritage Information Network). Despiteits success, Commanet remains a voluntary organisation,run by a small core team with no direct public funding.