Amster-Hot-Damn: Days III & IV

I intended to continue the Amsterdam narrative on Wednesday (and Thursday) but I started fencing again and let's just say that I have been left with very little energy and have lost my ability to negotiate staircases. Ahhh. It's good to be back.

So, where were we? Ah yes, I-CHORA 2, which, in case you were curious (but not curious enough to follow the link), was the Second International Conference on the History of Records and Archives. The theme was "Archival Affinities: Adapting and Adopting Archival Cultures." Pretty exciting, eh?

Well, it was a mighty early start to the day but I got up and ready in the dark so as not to disturb the others in the room, had breakfast (too early for eggs, apparently, but at least I got my croissant), grabbed a cappuccino at the wonderful bakery that I visited the first day, and walked the very quiet Amsterdam Streets to the University. The first session, on the theme "Recordkeeping Legacies," was kicked off by an excellent keynote by Jeanette Bastian. She took a theoretical look at the issue of Colonial-era records/archives, setting up the case-studies presented in the papers that followed. Particularly interesting were papers on the Spanish-era records in the Philippines, on the Republic of Kiribati (a former British Colony in the Pacific), and on the Japanese policies regarding the records of the territories they conquered in the 1930s and '40s. After lunch was "Recordkeeping Crossing Frontiers," which started off with really good paper on the records created by Spanish citizens who wanted to go to the Americas. Unfortunately, as the paper drew near an end I was struggling to keep alert in the veryvery warm room so I missed bits. The rest of the session was ok, but not spectacular and more nodding off occurred. I think I got the important bits.

Following the first full day of the conference was the banquet. This was held in the The Orangery of the Hortus Botanicus (Botanical Garden). We arrived a shade early but the catering staff let us in to wander about the garden. The garden was opened in 1638 and holds approximately 2% of all the species of plant life on Earth (ca. 4000 species). They have a bunch of carnivorous plants (Venus flytraps etc.), prehistoric palm and the crazy-big Victoria Lilies (flower of which is shown at left). There were greenhouses and enclosures (including a butterfly house) as well but since the park was closed we didn't get to go in. There were lots of cool plant-type things which I really know very little about, but it was neat to walk around and look, especially considering I most likely wouldn't have come to the Gardens on my own. The drinks were free flowing and the Italian buffet-style meal was quite good. After they kicked us out a bunch of archival types went to a pub for a drink. We stayed for one and then headed back to the hostel.

Another early morning, another breakfast minus the egg, another cappuccino and another nice walk to the University as the city woke up started my fourth day in Amsterdam. This day's proceedings didn't disappoint. The Canadians were thick in the water on the programme and I knew it was going to be good. The first session, "Shaping and Reshaping Archives," started off with the wonderful Laura Millar who talked about the intersection of Native and Euro-Canadian recordkeeping in British Columbia. The two faculty members of UMan's Archival programme, Terry Cook and Tom Nesmith, also gave great papers, the former on the evolution of archival theory and practice in Canada and the latter examined an expanded notion of provenance. And a very interesting paper was given on German archivists following World War II. The final session of the conference, "Memory and Writing in Archival Cultures" started with UBC's Heather MacNeil's examination of the origins of written records as evidence of acts in England. Also in the session were two papers on the International Criminal Tribunals, one dealing with the records created in the trials dealing with Rwanda and the other in the former Yugoslavia. And with that the conference was done.

A few people went out for a quick drink afterwards but that was pretty much it. We went for dinner at a place that served really good, and cheap, Dutch food called De Keuken van 1870. Following dinner and a bit of a rest we headed to Vondelpark to the Film Museum, where they showed movies outdoors, projected onto an inflatable screen. We saw Hair, which was surprisingly good and it was really cool to see it outside, sitting on a balcony of an amazing building. And that ended another Amsterdam day.