Opening Hours Changes

NEWS

Two more of our (London) repositories have announced changes to their opening hours.  From 8th October, Sutton Local Studies & Archives Centre's new WEEKEND hours will be: every Saturday 9.30am-5pm, and every Sunday 1-4.30pm.  Website here.

And London Metropolitan Archives' hours will be changing from 14th November.  Check out full details here.

[Just a thought: if record offices and the like want to increase footfall, would FULL weekend opening not be worth a try?  They could then close on two or more of their quieter weekdays]

News of a forthcoming family history course in Aberdeen via the ScottishGenes blog - check it out here.

A few spots of news from Ireland now, beginning with the online appearance of the Derry Corporation Minute Books at PRONI (thanks to Chris Paton - see his post here).

The Irish Genealogy News blog points us towards news on the award of the very first Certificate of Irish Heritage - see here.  A curious concept, but quite a neat idea.  How long before the Scots and Welsh follow suit, I wonder?  Can't see an English version taking off, though (funny that, isn't it? And I'm English, before you ask!).

And anyone who followed the link on Monday's post to the Ulster Historical Foundation's book sale may have noticed that the discount code quoted on the site itself didn't work.  Well, now it does, I am assured.

ARTICLES

A major 10-page article on the apparent demise of the study of history by Tristram Hunt MP has appeared online.  Read the introduction at the HistoryToday website, where you will find a link to the PDF document download (direct link here).  Interesting stuff.  Maybe as an MP he can help do something about the situation?

OTHER STUFF

A debate of sorts seems to opening up about the nature and use of social networking and genealogy.  It's all been triggered by the opening up of the Google+ facility (it had previously been by invite only).  Short pieces on the same can be found here and here.  With Chris Paton (in the latter link) expressing his doubts about the new-fangled facility, The Wandering Genealogist takes things a step further by pooh-poohing not only Google+ but Twitter and Facebook, too - a point which he illustrates by taking a look at the latest craze to sweep the online family history world, namely, the 'Meme' - see his post here.  It certainly seems to be getting mighty complicated out there!