Welcome to HUMAN or the Honest Ulsterman Magazine Archive Network. This is a project we've been intending to do since the reactivation of the magazine as an online entity. We are in the process of creating an online archive of small Irish literary magazines with the Honest Ulsterman as its cornerstone. Magazines, particularly those before the Internet age are the most ephemeral of objects and yet small literary magazines played (and still play) an intrinsic part in the development of major literary talent. A literary magazine archive can highlight trends in local literature and indicate the literary response to important local, national and international historical events of the era. It can illustrate publication trends over time and indicate aesthetic, stylistic and technological advancement in design and print methodologies. 

To understand contemporary literary practice it is important to see it in the context of the past and the HU provided a platform for then emerging but now well-known artists for over thirty years. Small magazines such as the HU played a vital part in the development of artistic practice. Importantly they were a small voice often running against the grain of the grand cultural/political/religious narratives that existed within Northern Irish society at that time. It is vital if we are to have a full appreciation of the art produced and distributed through magazines during the Troubles that we have access to these publications.

Just as there are no neutral small magazines (each has a agenda or rationale of some sort) there are no ‘neutral’ archivists despite the traditional claims to archival objectivity and neutrality. We take a holistic approach that emphasises that archives are social constructs and therefore inextricably bound to the social and domestic and thus can be used as social/cultural regenerative tools in this instance to promote the local small magazine and literary ecosystem. This is a consciously curated archive with articles, publications and even exhibitions among the potential projects developing from its holdings. Curation we consider as essentially a fluid application of philosophical, historical, social, cultural or artistic concepts to pre-existent or anticipated objects, in this instance small literary magazines. Arnold Dreyblatt sums it up really active archives really well: They can be animated:

through newly conceived contextual and spatial display and the active participation of user and public’ approaching the archival through a ‘juxtaposition of fragments, an illumination from different standpoints, an ever-changing mosaic of meaning and references, both visual and aural (Dreyblatt, 2002, p. 350).

As you will (hopefully) acknowledge we've made the archive deliberately accessible and emphasised ease of use. Many online archives are simply catalogues/lists of a particular collection. We'd agree with Wells who points out that:

effective cataloguing can no longer be measured first or primarily by adherence to rules and items catalogued. Rather, we must return to its original purpose – to ensure that our patrons have access to and can find the information they need, when they need it, and in a form they can use (Wells, 2005, p. 9). 

The archive is free to read and enjoy but please note that it is like most socially based archives a continual work in progress. We intend to make the archive completely searchable but as you no doubt realise this is quite a task and therefore will take time so please bear with us. We are working with archive material which is often not in perfect condition and that we have to work with 'as is' so therefore the scans are not as perfect as we would like. Occasionally there will be pages slightly askew or faded. Over time we hope to replace these pages and hopefully they won't spoil your enjoyment too much. We have tried to recreate the feel of the original Honest Ulsterman as faithfully as we can so have not corrected any mistakes that were in the original print editions. We've also decided to keep the publications in their original magazine 'shape' so to speak. We felt to break them up into separate poems/stories/articles etc would diminish them as 'objects' that were held and felt, loved (and hated) and even once had that newly printed smell that overwhelmes the senses. 

We are always on the lookout for any relevant archival material and looking for people to contribute thoughts and opinions to our blog so feel free to contact us at hueditor@theverbal.co or on 028 71266946.