Tagged / archives

Visiting Spanish historian researches PR archives

Since June 30, Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo of the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain has been a visiting scholar at BU, based in the Corporate & Marketing Communications academic group in The Media School.

During a four-week period, she has undertaken detailed research in the archive of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), which was the first major PR association established in Europe in 1955. The IPRA archive was developed by Professor Tom Watson in 2011.

It is an important source of information about PR’s evolution in the immediate post-World War 2 world and the field’s international expansion in the second half of the 20th century.

“Archives like that of IPRA are always difficult to find and provide essential material for PR historians,” said Professor Rodriguez Salcedo. She has also undertaken research at BU’s Library, including its special collection of historic PR books. As a result of her research, she and Professor Watson are exploring future research collaboration on the development of the PR sector in Europe, especially philosophical and practices approaches that evolved separately from the US.

Professor Rodriguez Salcedo also observed Professor Watson’s editorial and reviewing roles in developing a six-book series, ‘National Perspectives on the Development of Public Relations’ which is being published by Palgrave-Macmillan. She will be a contributor to the fifth book of the series, ‘Western Europe Perspectives’, with a chapter on the history of public relations in Spain.

During her stay Professor Rodriguez Salcedo, who is a member of the European Public Relations History Network, attended the 5th International History of Public Relations Conference at BU on July 2-3, at which she delivered a paper on the formation of the first Spanish PR consultancy and chaired a conference session.

Professor Natalia Rodriguez Salcedo discusses the IPRA archive with its founder, Professor Tom Watson

 

Pilot project for archive digitalisation gets under way which will ease access to info for researchers

German organisation DFG is to finance a pilot project that will digitalise archives across Germany in an attempt to save data and make it easily available for researchers which is great news if you have German collaborators. The pilot project will distribute just under €200,000 to each participating archive to test different ways of data digitalisation and access. The projects vary in length depending on each archive’s needs, but should last for over a year. The archives are supplying about a third of the costs from their own resources, and are in turn setting their own areas of interest. The state archive of Saxony, for example, will focus on the digitalisation of microfiches and microfilms. Hopefully this will pave the way for the UK archiving system too!