War Diaries Talk

New Diaries

  • josiepegg by josiepegg

    There don't seem to have been any new diaries lately. Are there more in the pipeline or are we all about to get withdrawal symptoms?
    Josie

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I've been wondering the same thing.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    The National Archives have been doing a lot of great digitisation work, so there are plenty more diaries to tag. I know the guys at IWM will be working to get them on the system, but hopefully one of them can give a fuller update shortly.

    Posted

  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    There are lots lots more, Western Front material is now all digitised, but not yet all released, and then there are all the other theatres of war. There may be a bit of a pause while the initial batch of data is checked, and we see if there are any useful refinements to the process.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Thanks for the update, David. It'd be great to get another batch of diaries in the queue as soon as we can.

    In terms of front-end refinements, I don't know where we stand now in terms of further development. But with @richardgrayson now using the data, it would be fantastic to keep up our momentum and keep adding to it.

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  • David_Underdown by David_Underdown moderator

    The guy who's doing most of the data processing is also on paternity leave at the moment, so that may also affect things!

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  • josiepegg by josiepegg

    Congratulations to the chap on paternity leave. However, the supply of diaries is rapidly dwindling. Will the poor man be returning from sleepless nights to a huge backlog of work? Do we have an update on this?

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I don't, I'm afraid, but perhaps one of the IWM or TNA crew can let us know whether there are plans in place to load in the next batch soon.

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  • deehar by deehar

    It would be useful to clear the decks of Divisional Troops and Sanitary Sections before the new batch of goodies arrives!

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Definitely! Although at the rate we're currently blasting through them, I'm not sure it will take very long.

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  • lnnseagan by lnnseagan

    I see that new diaries were uploaded, any special instructions? (as these are HQ diaries)

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I have to confess, I'm a little confused about that...

    I'll leave this for one of the IWM or TNA people to answer in the morning.

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I've jumped into one of the new diaries: 1 Division: 3rd Infantry Brigade: Headquarters. Fascinating so far, but I'm wondering how to tag the four battalions in the brigade. Is it best to tag them as "With" or "Other" or use my own judgement depending on the particular situation?

    For instance, on the opening page, the Bde. H.Q. traveled to Le Havre in the same ship as two of the brigade's battalions, so I tagged those two as "With", but the other two battalions were on a second ship, so I tagged them as "Other", although I wasn't sure because they are all under the Brigade H.Q. Would "With" be more appropriate there?

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  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I'm also assuming that, as with previous diaries, we should only tag those actions that apply directly to the headquarters unit or the brigade as a whole and avoid those that apply to the individual battalions. I've had one instance where it was mentioned that the battalions were route marching on that day, but I did not tag it as there was no mention of the men of the headquarters unit doing the route march. Was this correct?

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    I think your approach is correct, Cynthia, but there's a general problem here in that the current set of tags don't fit HQ diaries very well, which is why we deliberately haven't put them up before.

    I'm going to try and get a bit of direction on this today, but in the meantime, please continue as you are. Thanks!

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  • milh0use by milh0use

    Hi All,

    We've had a few emails going back and forth internally about what diaries to activate next and I think there may be some crossed wires in terms of what has ended up being activated. I'll check with colleagues also and update here when I know more. Needless to say, if we do take some HQ diaries offline again for the moment, no tags that have been submitted so far will be lost.

    Sorry for any confusion!

    Steven Hirschorn
    National Archives

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Thanks for the update! I think we do need to get these HQ diaries down asap (as far as I can see, they are the same set we briefly put up and then removed last year).

    It'd be great to see the next batch of battalion level diaries up too 😃

    Posted

  • milh0use by milh0use

    Thanks Rob,

    We've taken offline all the diaries that mention "headquarters" and were previously disabled and are just identifying the best batch of diaries to upload in their place. Sorry again for the confusion.

    Steven

    Posted

  • cyngast by cyngast moderator

    I was just checking available diaries and noticed that there are still a few up that would probably fall into the Headquarters category, but that don't have the word "Headquarters" in the title. There are about five, and they all are for an Assistant Director or Deputy Assistant Director. They're easy to find--they are all 0% complete.

    I got a bit more than halfway through the Headquarters diary I was tagging. Glad to know my tags won't be lost! I was actually managing pretty well with the available tags, although I think that might have been the circumstances of what the unit was doing. It was the 1st Div. 3rd Brigade diary for Aug. 1914 and so the brigade was quite active, first with moving to France and then retreating from Mons. Consequently, the Brigade headquarters was not heavily involved in administrative activities. In fact, most of my tags were about rations--or the lack thereof--and place names.

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  • HeatherC by HeatherC moderator

    Yes this problem came up last year. The HQ diaries are absolutely fascinating but the current set of tags really don't fit them and we had all sorts of problems and questions last time. I can see the experienced taggers here have managed to find their way through these very well, but they won't be so easy for newer taggers. It's the right decision to remove them from general tagging and think about how to tackle them in future.

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  • 141Dial34 by 141Dial34

    I enjoyed the 2 HQ diaries I did as well with few problems.Nice to get a different point of view as in ".. a very quiet day.. with only 12 casualties.."!

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Thanks for the updates, Steve.

    It'd be great to get those other few diaries Cynthia mentions down as well, but good to hear we can expect a new upload soon!

    The point Heather makes about experienced taggers handling the HQ diaries well with the existing tags is a good one. When the project team are considering how to handle the HQ diaries, it would be great to include their insights in the discussions.

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  • milh0use by milh0use

    Right, I've requested the remaining diaries accidentally activated last week be taken down which I expect will happen later today. The person making the changes is in Chicago so we only have a window of an hour or two each day when our working hours coincide.

    We should also be able to activate some more diaries in the next day or two.

    Posted

  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Great news! Thanks for keeping us updated.

    Looking forward to seeing the new batch of diaries soon.

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  • 141Dial34 by 141Dial34

    Woo Hooooooooo new diaries.I've seen enough whales tails & wildlife cams & penguins..ty ty Now which one to pick..

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  • ral104 by ral104 moderator, scientist

    Excellent! I spy a few in the mix too.

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