Michael was born in Yorkshire and educated at Bath and Oxford. He trained as an archivist at the Bodlein Library, Oxford and became the University Archivist at Glasgow University in 1974. In 2001 he became Professor of Archive Studies at the Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute (HATII) based at Glasgow University. He joined Northumbria Univserity’s iSchool in 2013.
Michael has researched and published extensively on a range of subjects, including record keeping practices, business history and is currently involved in researching the growth of the professions in the nineteenth century. This project depends on the availability of huge quantities of records that have been digitised for family historians and make it possible for the first time to test the hypothesis that during the Victorian period the professions formed a distinctive social group with their own mores and values that in some ways were inimical to economic progress. It is an early adopter project of the Oxford Research Data Service and amongst the first to publish data. Further details can be found at www.victorianprofessions.ox.ac.uk .
Michael Is also involved in research to semi-automate the sensitivity review of digitally born records. See www.projectabaca.wordpress.com/tag/project-abaca/ for further information. This project lies at the heart of many of the issues that will be touched on at this conference.
On a lighter note he is a keen gardener and contributed an essay ‘Brussels Sprouts and Empire’ to the book ‘Gardening – philosophy for everyone, cultivating wisdom‘ which explored the need to grow sprouts for Christmas dinner, however inhospitable the climate.
Recent publications:
Is the digital Different?, Michael Moss and Barbara Endicott-Popovsky (ed.), Facet Publishing, 2015.
Where have all the files gone? Lost in action points every one?’ Journal of Contemporary History, 2013, 7 (4). pp. 860-875.
‘The High Price of Heaven – the 6th Earl of Glasgow and the College of the Holy Spirit on the Isle of Cumbrae’. Architectural Heritage, 2013, 22. pp. 77-98.
‘From Cannon to Steam Propulsion: The origins of Clyde marine engineering’, Mariner’s Mirror, 2012, 98 (4).
Michael Moss, ‘Glasgow 1700 – 1800’, Warren MacDougall (ed.) History of the Book in Scotland, vol. 2, Edinburgh University Press, 2012.
Michael S Moss, ‘Is it a question of trust or why are we afraid to go to Nineveh?’, Archival Science, 2011.
Michael Moss, ‘Without the data, the tools are useless; without the software, the data is unmanageable’?, Journal of Society of Archivists, 31(1) April 2010, 1-14. 1465-3907
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