Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic For the Brits - Mass Observation Day

it's Mass Observation Day for this year tomorrow. This is a project for anyone and everyone to keep a diary for Saturday, May 12th, and e-mail it so that it becomes part of an archive of everyday life in Britain. The first Mass Observation Day was in 1937,and they have, more recently, become an annual event again, building up an archive of everyday life in Britain.

They want as many different participants as possible - why not join in?

The full details, including what to do with your one-day diary after you have written it, are here:

www.massobs.org.uk/12may.html

That sounds fun - too bad I'm not a Brit.

If I were though, I'm not sure I'd want to send all that information. I mean, the diary entry is fine but they want a picture, your location, where you work, if you're married, etc. That sounds like too much information to just hand out on the Internet in a mass diary with all these crazy and dishonest people out there scamming people.

But I LOVE the diary part.

The information doesn't go on line - the extracts that they do put on line are edited to remove details such as addresses. Mostly it's kept in the University of Sussex's research archives, and occasionally gets used for sociology papers etc.

My own entries are usually the sort of thing that would be in my blog anyway, just slightly more detailed than usual.