SERIAC 2010 in Chertsey

I’ve attended SERIAC (the South Eastern Region Industrial Archaeology Conference) for the last three years and enjoyed it every time. It’s also very good value at £12.50 for a day of talks that invariably span the whole field of industrial archaeology but remain understandable and interesting. This year it’s hosted by Surrey Industrial History Group at Chertsey Hall in Chertsey on Saturday 24 April. The programme is online; all the talks look genuinely interesting. Hope to see you there.

Three conferences that I’d like to attend

• Libre Graphics Meeting 2009. Cost of travel a tad high (OK, 24 peak-time return Reading to London trips). Would like to be there to talk about the new Open Font Library web site, but will it be any nearer to live by 6 May?
• Information Design Conference 2009. Slightly better chance of making this, in Greenwich on 2 and 3 April, as it only requires one of those return tickets (perhaps not even that!)
• SERIAC 2009. Booked already as this is a no-brainer at £12.50 for the day of talks on 25 April. Sadly, due to the DLR, I missed last year’s keynote on London’s pooh and how Bazalgette made it disappear, but this year we’re round the table in Camelot so who knows what’ll be unearthed?
• OK, make that four: Revival is the 2009 Friends of St Bride Library conference. I really ought to make it for that one as I’m supposed to be doing the techie stuff.

SERIAC 2007

(That is, SERIAC).

A very enjoyable one-day conference held conveniently close at the University of Reading. Highlights: Paul Sowan of Subterranea Britannica on chalk mines in general and the safety or otherwise of the chalk mines just below the streets of West Reading; David Buckley on ERIH, an initiative designed to spice up the appeal of industrial heritage sites in Europe; and Dick Greenaway on the industrial archaeology of woodland. It was also fun to watch Martin Andrews, a former teacher of mine in the Department of Typography, give a bracing (and comprehensive) run through the developments in printing technology during the nineteenth century.

One thing I appreciated was the calibre of the delegates; a good bunch of people they were! It is notable that, save for me and perhaps half a dozen others, there wasn’t anyone under the age of fifty. This, I think, clearly reflects the shift in ‘leisure interests’ across generations, but I am not prepared to believe that interest in IA, and in other similar fields, will wane and die off. What I do want to know is how interest will be held and the appeal of such pursuits as IA broadened. ERIH seems to offer some pointers.