Have you ever held on to a letter from a loved one and reread it several years later to relive times gone by? Have you ever stumbled across old photo albums in your parents’ loft and revelled in memories from your childhood? Or did you perhaps keep a journal while travelling around the world, to remember the highs and lows of your meeting with foreign lands and friendly souls? If so, you know the value of recorded information that can be used to recreate a memory from the past – and that is the primary goal of archival research.