Marking the 80th anniversary of VE day with a contribution to The Conversation

Posted on May 8, 2025 by Hazel Hall

Today is the 80th anniversary of VE Day. On this date in 1945, the Second World War allies formally accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces.

Amongst the articles published in The Conversation this week to mark the 80th anniversary is ‘VE Day: how personal first-hand accounts help keep everyday narratives of wartime Britain alive’. This article highlights the value of audio to bring the words of ordinary people from the Second World War directly into the present. The content of the article draws on the analysis of audience engagement with Lorna Lloyd’s Diary of the war in two online formats: (1) text and images on Blipfoto posted from 1st September 2019; (2) an eight episode podcast series that starts with diary entries from early September 1939. The analysis was first presented in an article that I co-authored with Dr Bruce Ryan, Marianne Wilson and Dr Iain McGregor, published in Archives in December 2024. Continue reading →

A new postcard to publicise the Platform to Platform project

Posted on February 21, 2025 by Hazel Hall

Dr Bruce Ryan and I are planning a couple of speaking engagements about our work on Lorna Lloyd and her Diary of the war in the near future, so today we worked on an updated version of our publicity postcard. Above is the front of the version that we are sending to be printed today. If anyone would like a copy when it’s ready, please email me.

‘Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series’ published

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Hazel Hall

cover image Archives: The Journal of the British Records Association ‘Podcasting the archive: An evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series’ is now available in issue 2 of volume 28 of Archives, published last month. I am a co-author of the article alongside Dr Bruce Ryan, Marianne Wilson, and Dr Iain McGregor.

In this work we compare audience engagement with a Second World War archive presented digitally in two formats as: (1) images and text in a Blipfoto journal, and (2) sound in an eight-episode podcast series (which starts with episode 1 here). The main findings reveal differences in levels of engagement for each presentation in respect of entertainment value, learning opportunities, and emotional response. Flexibility of access and authenticity of the archived material were also found to be important to audience engagement, with the nature of contextual information provided alongside the core archive key to the latter. Here we further understanding of facets of audience engagement with digitised archives while opening up new thinking on means of encouraging the general public to interact in more meaningful ways with historical records. Continue reading →

Dr Bruce Ryan wins CILIPS funding to explore school librarians’ roles in tackling misinformation and disinformation

Posted on December 9, 2024 by Hazel Hall

Congratulations to Dr Bruce Ryan, Senior Research Fellow in the School of Computing Engineering and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University, on securing funding for a new research project.

Dr Bruce Ryan

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Scotland (CILIPS) has funded Bruce to undertake research into the ways that school librarians can help pupils understand the implications of misinformation (i.e. incorrect information that has been created and disseminated by mistake) and disinformation (i.e. false information that has been deliberately created and disseminated with intent to mislead).

Bruce will collect qualitative and quantitative data from school librarians by focus group and in interviews on their: (1) efforts to help pupils in navigating challenging information landscapes and handling misinformation and disinformation; (2) training needs in fulfilling this role; and (3) collaborative work with teachers to address pupils’ understanding of misinformation and disinformation. Continue reading →

Lorna Lloyd at Girton College Cambridge: evidence from the Girton archive

Posted on October 31, 2024 by Hazel Hall

Girton College, University of Cambridge

When I first started posting entries from the Diary of the war to a Blipfoto journal in September 2019, I knew very little about its author Lorna Lloyd. I was, however, aware that she had been a student Girton College Cambridge in the 1930s. I was therefore hopeful that the College archives might hold materials related to Lorna’s time as an undergraduate student. My plan was to use these to flesh out the few details that we knew about Lorna at that time. Continue reading →

Career information literacy and the decision-making behaviours of young people: PhD thesis now available

Posted on September 24, 2024 by Hazel Hall

Dr Marina Milosheva’s full PhD thesis Career information literacy and the decision-making behaviours of young people is now available from the Edinburgh Napier repository.

On the basis of the ESRC/SDS-funded empirical work reported in the thesis, Marina presents three main contributions to theory:

Articulation of career information seeking as a two-stage process.
Identification of two distinct career decision-making styles: (1) fulfilment-based; (2) pragmatic.
Demonstration of resilience as an information literacy skill.

Continue reading →

Article accepted by ‘Archives’ on audience engagement with podcast series

Posted on September 2, 2024 by Hazel Hall

platform, logo, Lorna, Lloyd, war, diary ‘Podcasting the archive: an evaluation of audience engagement with a narrative non-fiction podcast series’ has been accepted for publication by Archives journal in October 2024. This contribution is the main output of the AHRC-Creative Informatics funded Platform to platform project. It is co-authored by Dr Bruce Ryan, Professor Hazel Hall, Marianne Wilson, and Dr Iain McGregor. Continue reading →

Lorna Lloyd’s ‘Diary of the war’ features in the ‘Their finest hour’ archive

Posted on July 30, 2024 by Hazel Hall

Earlier this year, the Platform to Platform project team responded to a call from colleagues at the University of Oxford for submissions of Second World War stories to the Their finest hour archive. Continue reading →

A new role at the University of Stirling for Marina Milosheva

Posted on May 1, 2024 by Hazel Hall

Marina Milosheva

Congratulations to Marina Milosheva on her appointment as post-doctoral researcher within the Faculty of Social Sciences (Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology division) at the University of Stirling. Marina joined the University of Stirling on Monday, five weeks after her PhD examiners recommended that Edinburgh Napier University award her doctorate unconditionally (i.e. with no corrections required to her thesis).

In her new role, Marina is working on the Bridge, youth, and mindsport education project. This research is affiliated with the non-profit organisation Bridge: a mindsport for all (BAMSA). This body was formed to support research into the sociology of the card game bridge. Continue reading →

Alice Thornton at the Festival of Cultural Heritage Research 2024

Posted on April 22, 2024 by Hazel Hall

Last Thursday 18th April, I attended a session at the University of Edinburgh’s Festival of Cultural Heritage Research 2024 entitled Discovery and digitisation: Alice Thornton’s life and books (1626-1707). Continue reading →

Hazel Hall

Emeritus Professor, Edinburgh Napier University

Category Archives: Projects