(no subject)
What an archivist is/was/does/what?…
1) Archivists are composed of approximately 90% chocolate biscuits and coffee breaks.
2) Archivists like to touch old things. That includes Terry Wogan.
3) Archivists hate people. This means that if you want to come in and use a computer you have to fill out a form in triplicate three weeks before your visit, get it signed by your academic tutor/dead grandmother/second cousin’s infant child. Then we say no.
4) Don’t ever sneak up behind an archivist. Speed is an alien concept to us, we find it strange and confusing.
5) Don’t ever ask an archivist about their holiday. They do have slides, and they are prepared to use them.
6) Archivists orgasm every time you say the word practical [also organised, efficiency and regulations]
7) In the archival world nothing is like it used to be. This includes children/the price of meat/the Labour Party/shoes/The Daily Telegraph/researchers/shops/the quality of paper/the economy/life/the universe/everything/kitkats.
8) Archivists can only conceive upside down in a mound of dust, covered in silverfish, while being shouted at in Latin and whipped on the ass with a hefty wad of archival regulations.
9) Archivists work on an Ent time scale. Normal human definition of soon = within the next few hours/days/weeks, archival definition of soon = within the next decade/century/possibly/ish/give or take.
10) They lied, it wasn’t the Borrowers. We’ve got all your paperclips. And your string too.