Community Experiences of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemic in North Cumbria: An Archiving Story

Abstract

This paper recounts our experiences of archiving a large, sensitive, mixed method data set which produced both textual and audio material. In 2001 we began a 30 month, Department of Health funded research project into the health and social consequences of the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) epidemic in North Cumbria. The project generated a large dataset, over 3,000 weekly diaries and 70 recorded interviews. We offer our rationale for archiving this dataset. We describe how we set about seeking respondent consent for archiving. Finally we discuss our archiving process in relation to two overlapping issues that have well debated implications for the broader acceptance and take up of qualitative data sharing and re-use; that of anonymity and defining and capturing data context.