{"id":662,"date":"2017-11-21T08:00:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-21T08:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=662"},"modified":"2020-02-20T16:18:58","modified_gmt":"2020-02-20T16:18:58","slug":"if-you-go-down-to-the-archives-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/?p=662","title":{"rendered":"If you go down to the Archives today \u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this post, Mike Esbester brings us up to date on the book he wrote earlier in the year, marking the 60th<\/sup> anniversary of the British Safety Council \u2013 now picked up by The National Archives and health and safety professionals.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"2017 marks the 60th<\/sup> anniversary of the British Safety Council, one of the leading organisations aimed at improving health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace, in the UK and beyond. Fortunately the BSC is an organisation attuned to the value of the past, and \u2013 as discussed in an earlier post \u00a0<\/a>\u2013 has been prepared to put its money where its mouth is, including creating an excellent digital archive\u00a0<\/a>, freely available to all.\"\"<\/p>\n

In the lead up to this anniversary, the BSC called upon me to advise and work with them. They drew upon my research in the field of modern health and safety, including work funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health. One of the things I was involved in was writing a book marking the anniversary; it was launched at the Regent St Cinema in London in March 2017 \u2013 I\u2019d never been to a launch quite like that!<\/p>\n

The book was aimed at professionals and practitioners, drawing on the BSC\u2019s archive and particularly the poster collections, but also grounding the imagery with a detailed contextual discussion. It was an interesting exercise in pitching the tone correctly, selecting engaging images and providing a sturdy analytical approach \u2013 but it\u2019s been well received.<\/p>\n

And now, if you\u2019re visiting The National Archives at Kew (perhaps as part of \u2018Explore your Archive<\/a>\u2019 \u00a0week, running this week), you might see a copy of the book in the \u2018new books\u2019 display in the Map Room! It was selected for the library and for display, which (as the author) is always pleasing. The Friends of The National Archives also put together a feature for the current issue of Magna<\/em>, their journal \u2013 available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"In addition, the book was picked up by Safety & Health Practitioner <\/em>magazine, a monthly publication aimed at health and safety professionals in the UK and received by all 35,000 members of the Institution of Occupational Safety & Health, the UK\u2019s largest professional organisation in the field. The SHP piece was based around an interview about the book, drawing out its origins, the role I played in uncovering the BSC\u2019s archive and then the process of writing the book itself. It\u2019s available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The book\u2019s reach hasn\u2019t been confined to the UK \u2013 it\u2019s been sent worldwide, reflecting the BSC\u2019s connections and interests beyond our shores. I was recently told \u2013 though must follow it up! \u2013 about favourable feedback on the book from Portugal, and I hope there\u2019s more out there.<\/p>\n

All told, it\u2019s great to see academic research reaching out well beyond higher education institutions \u2013 and \"\"that there is huge scope for and interest in this. There\u2019s no doubt it takes time and effort \u2013 I\u2019ve been working with the BSC for 7 or 8 years now \u2013 but it bears fruit, and that can only be to the good for the historical community. And a taster: watch this space, as it looks likes there is a lot more to come…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

All images courtesy of the British Safety Council<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this post, Mike Esbester brings us up to date on the book he wrote earlier in the year, marking the 60th anniversary of the British Safety Council \u2013 now picked up by The National Archives and health and safety professionals. 2017 marks the 60th anniversary of the British Safety Council, one of the leading organisations aimed at improving health, safety and wellbeing in the workplace, in the UK and beyond. Fortunately the BSC is an organisation attuned to the value of the past, and \u2013 as discussed in an earlier post \u00a0\u2013 has been prepared to put its money where its mouth is, including creating an excellent digital archive\u00a0, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":667,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,2,18,4],"tags":[54,53,148,26,147,55,149,52,146,74,150],"class_list":["post-662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-new_publications","category-public-history","category-research-in-focus","tag-accident-prevention","tag-accidents","tag-ahrc","tag-archives","tag-arts-and-humanities-research-council","tag-british-safety-council","tag-bsc","tag-health-and-safety","tag-instituttion-of-occupational-safety-and-health","tag-iosh","tag-national-archives"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/history.port.ac.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/BSC-First-Aid-1972-e1511216519643.png?fit=620%2C299&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p91PlX-aG","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=662"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":673,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662\/revisions\/673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/history.port.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}