Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future

Listening to the Past,Speaking to the FutureReport of the Archives Task Force

ContentsForewordExecutive Summary and Recommendations34123456The Power to Change LivesThe Importance of ArchivesThe Findings of the Task ForceA Strategy for ActionAccess to All: a Gateway to UK ArchivesDeveloping Archives and AudiencesModernisation and Workforce DevelopmentFunding, Recommendations, Next StepsNext steps for Action and Delivery101216222434485658Appendices68A–––––Archives in 2004The Breadth and Diversity of UK ArchivesArchive Facts and FiguresExamples of Archive Types Across the UKArchive Users – Age ProfileTrends in Archive Visitor Numbers 1997–2001Archive Users at The National Archives, the National Archives• of Scotland and the Public Record Office of Northern IrelandDiversity of UK Archives in 20047070707273747475BArchive Networking Developments to Date76CAcknowledgementsMembers of the Archives Task ForceArchives Task Force Project TeamContributors and Respondents80808182DArchives Task Force Report annexes published online94

ForewordThe Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncil (MLA) was invited by theDepartment for Culture, Media andSport to establish the Archives TaskForce to: “…carry out an in-depthanalysis and review of the state of theUK’s unique and diverse archives.”During its deliberations, the Task Force held eight meetingsand consulted over 700 people and organisations togather opinion from those working within archives andfrom groups and individuals working independently(often voluntarily) to create, maintain and interpretarchival collections on every topic imaginable. In addition,the Task Force received evidence from a wide range ofexperts and active archive users.Our report also includes detailed recommendations onways to modernise public sector archives and to developthe skill sets and expertise of professional archivists inall areas. The Archives Task Force believes this reportcould help transform our archives and revolutionise theway they are accessed and used.I am grateful to all members of the Task Force for theirunflagging energy and commitment to achieving a reportwhich could make a real impact. Thanks, too, go to theteam at MLA who undertook the data gathering and pulledthe findings together. Special thanks to the individuals,groups and organisations who contributed time, passionand wisdom to the compilation of this report.3We have found a rich and diverse tapestry of archiveactivities, exploring, revealing and underpinning thehistories of these Islands and, equally important,preserving the present for the future. The commitment ofthe archives profession to what they do and the passionof those using archival records for research, for business,to support a programme of learning or for personal interesthave encouraged the Task Force to make very clearrecommendations for widening access to new audiences.Archives have something for everyone and we believe ourprimary duty is to present the means to help every student,every would-be family historian, and every communitygroup wishing to celebrate and record its own history andculture to benefit from this unique store of knowledge.Mark WoodChair, Archives Task ForceWe therefore propose in our report a major new initiativeto help people from all parts of the population to accessarchives more easily and to enable archives to play agreater role in education. Our plan is for an ArchivesGateway, an electronic pathway and guide which will openup the whole archives world to wider use. The Gatewaywill identify and map public, private, business andcommunity archives and allow users of all ages to find thecollections or content they seek quickly and easily.

Executive Summary and RecommendationsIt is an ambition ofthe Task Force thatthe collections in theUK’s archives arereadily accessibleto everyone.4 Our archives contain unique resources covering every aspect of the UK’s history(along with links to other nations and cultures), its interests, its business life andits creativity. Collectively these resources include something that is of interestto everyone: the school child, the student, the researcher, the family or villagehistorian, the individual seeking evidence of their identity or rights and thecitizen wishing to explore almost any topic or interest.It is not overstating the importance of archives to suggest that without theirexistence there would be no real sense of history, whether of the last ten years orthe last thousand years. Archives have always been the mainstay of traditionalscholarship and represent the raw material that enables the scholar orresearcher to analyse, compare and interpret.Archival records are also evidential components of the official record and aretherefore essential to understanding the processes of decision-making andgovernance. Preserving and managing these records has a long and honourablehistory. This role has become increasingly important to public life as theFreedom of Information Act, the Data Protection Act, the demands of electronicrecords management and increasing media scrutiny of government have broughtnew responsibilities to all public authorities for the care of archives and currentadministrative records.Today, the importance of archives to the historical and the public record remainsno less relevant in a world of increasing media and communication channels.FindingsOne of the immediate positive results of the commissioning of the ArchivesTask Force by government was that it has provided a forum for a completedebate about archives in the UK. This has stimulated not only a consultationexercise of a size and comprehensiveness that the domain has never seenbefore but a bringing together of key figures who have been able openly todebate the issues which will set the agenda for UK archives for a decade tocome. Although our report is presented to government and key policymakers,all who care about the UK’s unique archives will be interested in developing ourfindings and recommendations.During the course of its work, the Task Force has explored the condition of thenation’s archival collections, their use and scope and their preparedness torespond to the growing importance of public accountability, burgeoning digitalmedia and the rapidly growing number of people exploring their family historiesand identities, many of them from outside the UK.

Archives need thetools for the job –given the necessaryresources, they candeliver on outreachand stewardship andaccess.

6 Wide consultation has taken the form of written submissions, presentations atthree oral evidence hearings and meetings in the nine English regions, NorthernIreland, Scotland and Wales. Over 700 people and organisations expressed theirviews. The evidence considered extended well beyond the boundaries ofpublicly-funded collections and the recommendations of this report embrace theeducational and research value of access to the widest range of collections,recognising, of course, the confidentiality of business and personal records.We have been greatly impressed by the commitment and energy of thoseworking in archives and we support strongly the need for documentationstandards, appropriate storage, security, conservation and a skilled workforce.Forceful arguments have been presented concerning the need for long-terminvestment to preserve and improve accessibility of collections and to ensurethat the demands of digital media particularly can be managed effectively.We recognise that further development cannot come without change in themanagement and co-ordination of, and further sustained investment in, archivesand archival collections.We have been equally impressed by the growing interest in personal identityand sense of place that is attracting more and more people to explore theirheritage and frequently encouraging them to create their own archival resources.We must not forget that the archival record is at once the voice of the past andthe means by which we speak to the future. This exploration of personal historyand identity should be the right of every citizen.VisionIt is an ambition of the Task Force that the collections in the UK’s archives arereadily accessible to everyone. Delivering effective, universal access calls fornew strategies and techniques that will engage those who currently benefit leastfrom this archival heritage: the non-specialist individual, community groups,and the student in school. We are certain that with the commitment of thearchives domain, placing access as the highest priority and with the supportof funding bodies, rapid progress will be possible.While there are no simple or short-term fixes to make this a reality, the TaskForce is very clear on the steps that must be taken to direct investment andculture change over the next three years to deliver what we believe is an excitingand challenging vision:“An archival heritage unlocked and made open to all citizens in a way thatengages them and empowers them to use archives for personal, community,social and economic benefit.”

Executive Summary and RecommendationsDelivering the Vision7We propose in our report new ways for users to access archive content. Our aimis to unlock our vast archival heritage and also to demonstrate how the archivedomain can support specific public service targets through social, educationaland economic impact. At a time of pressure on public expenditure, long-termsustainability will come from engaging as many people as possible with thearchival heritage whether for leisure, learning, personal development, businessor community involvement.Access to AllThe Task Force proposes the use of information and communicationstechnologies to create a new “Archives Gateway” that will bring about a stepchange in the accessibility of services and collections. The work already done byThe National Archives, the National Council on Archives and others shows howthese virtual pathways can bring new people to archival resources and webelieve from our wide consultation that there is considerable support from allsides to take another big step forward.The Archives Gateway would be an all-purpose entry point for people seekingarchive material, guiding them via zones and categories to the materialthey need. It will be a means of engaging private, commercial and communityarchives and offering a way for them to make their collections more accessible.The Archives Gateway will also be closely linked to MLA-led initiatives under the“Investing in Knowledge” banner to create electronic links between schools andthe digitised collections of our museums and libraries. The “Knowledge Web”aims to put use of museum, library and archive resources at the heart of thecountry’s 21st century learning agenda. It is possible that at least some of thefunding necessary to create our exciting vision could be met by the Lotterydistributors that have previously supported programmes such as EnrichUK 1 andA2A 2 . A three-year programme is proposed that will build technicalinfrastructure, deliver training, enable digitisation and encourage the creation ofsupport services for various categories of archive user. This programme isdescribed in detail in Chapter 3.Recommendation OneCreate a digital Gateway to UK Archives that will give everyone theopportunity to participate in the archival heritage.

8 Archive Development ProgrammeIn relation to modernisation, audience development and capacity building, theTask Force believes that there is small chance of significant increases in fundinglocally or nationally in the present economic climate. We therefore suggest thatinnovation, action, research and advocacy should be stimulated using whatwe are calling an Archive Development Programme. Bringing in support fromnational agencies in England, and private sector sponsors, this could includebids to government departments and devolved administrations in the homenations for specific projects such as education and learning, social inclusionand volunteering. The Task Force believes that a budget of between £500,000and £1 million a year for three years would have a significant impact on servicedevelopment and capacity. The scope of activities that could be covered bythe proposed Archive Development Programme is described in Chapters 4and 5.Six high-level recommendations with associated actions are presented thatcould be supported by the Archive Development Programme, or by externalfunding where it can be achieved:Recommendation TwoPosition UK archives as key contributors to local, regional and national socialand economic objectives.Recommendation ThreeRelease the potential of archives to enrich and enhance teaching and learningand contribute to raising standards in education.Recommendation FourIncrease community participation in UK archive activities with particularfocus on engaging hard-to-reach communities.Recommendation FiveEncourage business, private and specialist archives to develop as integratedcomponent parts of our national heritage.Recommendation SixEncourage the creation and sustainability of moving image, sound,photographic and digital archives through support for relevant strategies.Recommendation SevenPut in place a programme to modernise service management and improveworkforce development opportunities.

Executive Summary and RecommendationsManaging Implementation of the Strategy9We have been fortunate to gain UK-wide support for the Task Force. We believethis gives a powerful message to all policy makers and stakeholders since itdemonstrates a commitment to the future across a wide spectrum of differentcircumstances and histories. We recognise, however, that professional supportin the production of a blueprint for future development will need to bestrengthened by gaining political and financial support from all parts of the UK.Most importantly in the short term, there will need to be the means to managea national programme of development, which co-ordinates activity in all fourhome nations. Our final recommendation, therefore, addresses steps towardsthe creation of a suitable forum to co-ordinate work on the Gateway to Archivesand the proposed Archive Development Programme. Strategic co-ordinationbetween all four home nations will ensure the Archive Development Programmeis put to most effective use to transform UK archives. Proposals for co-ordinationand development are presented in Chapter Six. 6.Recommendation EightAgreement should be sought from the four home nations of the UK on thecreation of the forum that will co-ordinate the development of therecommendations of this report.1. EnrichUK is the portal to 1. a collection EnrichUK of is 150 the portal sites supported to a collection by the of New 150 sites Opportunities supported Fund. byThe collection ranges across the culture, New Opportunities history, social Fund. and economic The collection development, ranges across science culture, and art history, aswell as offering regional and social national and ‘sense economic of place’ development, websites from science England, art Scotland, as well as Northern offeringIreland and Wales. www.enrichuk.net regional and national ‘sense of place’ websites from England, Scotland,Northern Ireland and Wales. www.enrichuk.net2. A2A: the Access to Archives 2. A2A: programme, the Access co-ordinated to Archives by programme, The National co-ordinated Archives. The by The database Nationalnow contains more than six Archives. million catalogue The database entries now describing contains archives more than held six in million 340 record catalogue offices,libraries and other repositories entries throughout describing England. archives www.a2a.org.ukheld in 340 record offices, libraries and otherrepositories throughout England. www.a2a.org.ukWe have beenfortunate to gainUK-wide support forthe Task Force.We believe this givesa powerful messageto all policy makersand stakeholders.We have beenfortunate to gainUK-wide support forthe Task Force.We believe this givesa powerful messageto all policy makersand stakeholders.

The Power to Change Lives10‘ Archives provide the bedrock for our understanding of the past.They show us, and future generations, how we came to be what weare as a nation, a community or an individual.’ Vic Gray, Archives Task Force Member

1The Importance of ArchivesThe archival recordis … the direct,uninterpreted andauthentic voiceof the past.12 The history of the United Kingdom is the history of peopleand places, made up of great events that affect everyoneand small events that mould the lives of individualsand communities. Through books we see people, placesand events woven together, exploring and interpretingrelationships. Exhibits in museums and galleries givephysical insights into those events, those people,those places.The archival record is different. It is the direct,uninterpreted and authentic voice of the past: the primaryevidence of what people did and what they thought; thelook of places and events recorded through images –both still and moving; life’s beginnings and life’s endings;the growth and decline of industries and the ebbs andflows of communities and cultures. The archival recordis the foundation on which are built all our histories, withtheir many and varied voices. We may hear the voice ofthe Lord Protector of England and the voice of a Ranterside by side; or the voice of the captain of industry and theworker on the factory floor: the same event from verydifferent points of view.It is not overstating the importance of archives to suggestthat without their existence there would not be any realsense of history whether of the last ten years or the lastthousand years. Archives have always been the mainstayof traditional scholarship and represent the raw materialthat enables the scholar or researcher to analyse, compareand interpret.Archival records fulfil another unique role. They canbe the evidential components of the public record and aretherefore essential to understanding the processes ofdecision making and governance. Preserving andmanaging these records has a long and honourable historythat is now visible in the work of the UK’s national archivalservices and the network of local record offices, andspecialist archives. This role has become increasinglyimportant to public life as new responsibilities to all publicauthorities for the care of archives and current recordshave emerged. The Freedom of Information Act, theData Protection Act, the demands of electronic recordsmanagement and increasing media scrutiny of governmenthave brought fresh challenges. This importance has been

Archives can play acritical role in formaleducation at alllevels, and in lifelonglearning both as thesubject of learningand as a learningtool.

The Importance of Archivesbrought into focus with the evidence presented to theHutton Inquiry, embracing electronic information (such asemails) and written information (such as personal diaries),as well as oral testimony.Such events highlight a paradox that has always faced theprofessions in archival and records management. Thewider world has little interest in records until something isneeded – as evidence of proof, for research or indeed justfor interest. Yet unless the preservation and managementof increasing numbers of items in various media iscontinuously sustained (whether through statutoryrequirements or voluntary responsibility) the availableevidence of past events will be no more than a randompatchwork of haphazard facts. Many people who holdarchive collections do not recognise what they do as beingarchival. These can include the passionate amateur andcommunity groups whose diverse collections can providethe focus to bring people together as part of a vibrantmulti-faceted UK community. In many ways it is this‘invisibility paradox’ that is the key challenge of the TaskForce and of those who will deliver the recommendationsthat the Task Force proposes.or on the television. Changing this perception and helpingarchives to fulfil effectively broader social functions hasbeen the purpose of the Task Force.Our vision is of an archival heritage unlocked and madeopen to all citizens in a way that engages them andempowers them to use archives for personal, community,social and economic benefit.In one way oranother archives andrecords managementunderpin the workof all organisations.15Archives, of course, are much more than a quiet haunt forthe solitary researcher that the popular stereotype oncesuggested. Moving image, sound and photographicarchives, are growing as innovative dimensions in therecording and preservation of our history. Many of thesecollections have used technological solutions to enablemass audiences to access the resources as more and morepeople decide to explore their own identity and history, orto add a sense of history to their relationship with the placethat they inhabit. The global interest in family historyattracts millions of virtual visitors to The National Archives’website to explore online census data.In one way or another archives and records managementunderpin the work of all organisations, whether forcommercial interests or public accountability, for interest orto encourage wider understanding of our place in societyand in the rest of the world. And yet, until recently, for themajority of the people of the UK, the significance ofarchives and the richness they contain has remained nomore than a footnote in the histories told in books, in class

2The Findings of the Task ForceThe focus on usershas been a threadrunning through theconsultation processand the shapingof our vision for a21st century archiveservice.16 The connections between archives and the individual,the community and the nation have been integral to thethinking of the Task Force. The focus on users has beena thread running through the consultation process and theshaping of our vision for a 21st century archive service.A better understanding of the needs, expectations andattitudes of current and future generations of users mustdirect the future development of UK archives.During the course of its work, the Task Force has exploredthe condition of the nation’s archival collections, their useand scope and their preparedness for the radical changesthat they can expect to face in the coming years. Thegrowing importance of public accountability, burgeoningdigital media, the rapid growth in the numbers of peopleexploring their own identities and histories, and the needto improve public services and facilities for archivalmaterial are just some of the demands to be addressed.Wide consultation has taken the form of writtensubmissions, presentations at three oral evidence hearingsand meetings in the nine English regions, NorthernIreland, Scotland and Wales. Over 700 people andorganisations expressed their views. We have consideredevidence from all types of archives (Appendix C containsdetails of those consulted). It is clear to us that therequirements to preserve and look after the historicalrecord need to be balanced with the overwhelmingbenefits of increased access. The evidence considered bythe Task Force extends well beyond the boundaries ofpublicly-funded collections and it is clear that there willbe occasions within business, specialist and privatearchives where accessibility will have to be balanced withthe requirements of confidentiality of business or personalrecords. However, there has been support expressed frommany quarters that while acknowledging thoseconstraints, the recommendations of this report shouldembrace the educational and research value of accessto the widest range of collections.Before moving to propose strategy for future actionit is important to summarise clearly what are the majoropportunities and threats that the Task Force has identifiedduring the progress of its work.

18 DemandThe growing interest in personal identity and sense ofplace is attracting more and more people to explore theirheritage and frequently encouraging them to create theirown archival resources that might then add to our archivalheritage.We have been impressed by the enjoyment and inspirationthat people have gained from their discoveries: fromlearning about themselves, their past and their placewithin the wider community; of the pride in creating andmaintaining collections without thought to cost or timeinvolved. We have met and heard of many people whoselives have been changed for the better by the experience.This exploration of personal history and identity should bethe right of every citizen.The increasing global interest in local and family historyhas already been cited and there is no doubt that moreand more people will seek the means to learn more aboutthemselves, their families and their homes. It is now aphenomenon reflected in the broadcast and print mediaand in the explosion of dedicated web-sites. We have beenimpressed by the social impact made by some of thecommunity archives that we have seen and we believethat there is a great opportunity to encourage this sort ofactivity. Joining together people with shared interests,identities or histories can be empowering, can help themto gain confidence in their own identities and can supportcitizenship where the people are disenfranchised ordisadvantaged in some way.There is thus current demand that many archives canhardly meet, an ever-expanding list of priorities for archiveservices, growing demand from active groups andindividuals and a latent demand of unknown (but large)proportions that could, if met, help to achieve keygovernment targets for social inclusion and learning.SupplyPublic archives are well-established through the workof the national archive services, local authority-run recordoffices, local studies libraries, universities and furthereducation institutions, and the records managementservices of public organisations. Legislation lays statutoryobligations upon some archives although in most casesrecord-keeping continues to be a voluntary commitmentrather than a duty. It is clear that the lack of a commonstatutory framework militates against consistency acrossthe country especially in terms of the level of investmentmade by local authorities. As a result, many collectionsare not adequately catalogued to make them accessible;many premises are not appropriate for their current needs;higher levels of demand could not be satisfied withoutadditional resources and the weaker services are not wellplaced to respond to the challenging opportunities set outin this report.Private archival collections are held by countlessindividuals, societies and organisations. There is alsothe growth in moving image, sound and photographicarchives, many operating as commercial enterprises.The diversity and the priorities of private interest producea complex mixture that will not lend itself to a simple setof actions for greater co-ordination or for sharing. Indeed,where commercial or self-interest is concerned it may bequite inappropriate to expect any form of public access.On the other hand, many private archives provide publicaccess to parts of their collections, which may provideopportunities to develop further controlled access tonon-sensitive items or to develop materials to supporta range of learning and social outcomes.Funding of archives varies across this landscape. Majorpublic funders of services are local authorities, universities,national archive institutions (funded by central anddevolved governments) and the Lottery distributors.We believe that to realise the Task Force vision archiveswill require significant and sustained investment in thelonger term. If the public sector is constrained by resourcesthe private sector shares the common need for investmentto ensure that collections of potential public interest are

The Findings of the Task Force1919The exploration ofpersonal history andidentity should be theright of every citizen.

Our approach hasbeen to develop andpropose strategiesthat can secureimpact in the short tomedium term tounlock longer-termbenefit.

The Findings of the Task Forcecared for properly and this element of our national heritageis safeguarded for the future.Moreover all parts of the supply side need adequatesupport in terms of standards and professional advice.The national archive services in England and Wales,Northern Ireland and Scotland already provideconsiderable support but greater co-ordination will becalled for if there is to be increased sharing to meet newdemands for archival records of all types, both privateand public.Developing a Strategic ResponseProgress on addressing the issues that we have identified(investment needs, domain capacity to respond tochanging demands, quality assurance, the benefits ofgreater integration and co-ordination across archives of alltypes, innovation and the broader impact that the archivescould have on people’s lives) depends on recognising whatis possible in terms of funding and of capacity at any giventime. The Task Force is very well aware that there iscurrently considerable pressure to resist increased publicexpenditure without clear evidence to show that newinitiatives will help to deliver specific public sector targets.Our approach has been to develop and propose strategiesthat can secure impact in the short to medium termto unlock longer-term benefit.The key for archives is the unique value of theircollections and the latent demand for what archives canoffer to everyone. This represents a powerful opportunityto catch the attention of policymakers especially whenset alongside the successful examples of serviceinnovation using information and communicationstechnologies to widen access to services.At the end of Chapter 1 we stated our vision for thearchives domain:“An archival heritage unlocked and made open to allcitizens in a way that engages them and empowers themto use archives for personal, community, social andeconomic benefit.”We believe that by focusing on action to advance thisvision, real progress can be achieved and significant socialvalue delivered. Long term sustainability will come fromengaging as many people as possible with the archivalheritage whether for leisure, learning, personaldevelopment, business use or community activism.We cannot stress too highly that our recommendations aredesigned to achieve effective and sustainable access toour national archival heritage wherever it may be, notsimply to raise awareness of archives and their services.Delivering effective, universal access calls for newstrategies and techniques that will engage individuals andcommunities, new skills and service priorities for thoseworking in archives and, of course, additional resourcesto ensure that they are fit for purpose. However, we arecertain that with the commitment of archive workers andarchive owners, placing access as the highest priority,the support of funding bodies, partnership and leadership,rapid progress will be possible. We have identified manyexamples where imaginative approaches to access andinnovative responses to popular interests have made itpossible for far wider access to services than traditionalroutes can make possible. Commercial internet-basedgenealogical services, the work of The National Archivesto support the curriculum through the Learning Curvewebsite 3 and the co-operative work of public archivesto share electronic catalogue records are all examples ofwhere it has been possible to innovate without changingthe underlying infrastructure.While there are no simple or short-term fixes to make thisa reality, in the following chapters, the Task Force sets outways to direct investment and development over the nextthree years.3. The National Archives’ Learning Curve is an on-line teaching resource,structured to tie in with the History National Curriculum from Key Stages2 to 5. The Learning Curve contains a varied range of original sourcesincluding documents, photographs, film and sound recordings.www.learningcurve.pro.gov.uk21

A Strategy for Action22‘ The Archives Task Force cannot solve problems but it can describethem and set out routes to solve them.’Dame Stella Rimington, Archives Task Force member

3Access for All: a Gateway to UK ArchivesThe ArchivesGateway will createeasy access for all toa treasure house ofknowledge.24 The archives domain has led the way in developinginnovative approaches to maximising the potential ofdigital networking to deliver real service benefits to all.(Appendix B gives further details of significant activities towiden access to archive collections). The boom in personalinterest research, including family history and communityhistory, is phenomenal. Research shows that many userswant images of archive material relating to their interests,and archivists across the UK have responded to theinternet explosion by trying to put as much contentonline as possible. All these resources must be broughttogether to create a spectacularly impressive researchresource, by linking them together and making themcross-searchable, delivering information in a variety ofways which the users want.The proposal in this chapter builds on the findingsof a working group established by the Task Force to lookat electronic networking issues. Representation includedMLA, The National Archives, the National Archivesof Scotland, the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland,The Joint Information Services Committee and theNational Council on Archives. Building on conceptschampioned by the National Council on Archives andothers, the working group and its partners have developeda programme of work called Linking Arms that will formthe core element of the Archives Task Forcerecommendation for the creation of a digital Gatewayto lead users of all ages to discover the rich source ofknowledge that is the archives of the UK. We have calledthis the ‘Archives Gateway.’The Archives Gateway will create easy access for all toa treasure house of knowledge. It will lead users throughone route to documents, photographs, moving images,sound and oral history recordings illustrating andexplaining the life of our nations from earliest times to thepresent day. The Gateway will gather for the user all thematerial relating to a specific topic, person or place andfrom whatever institution contains relevant material.Our vision is much more than a route to listings of archivalrecords. Significant increases in access to archival recordswill call in many cases for the creation of digital versions

26 of original documents. Digitisation offers new and excitingways for people to learn, and attract new audiences to thecollections of archives, libraries and museums. The BritishLibrary’s work to put digital copies of historical documentssuch as Magna Carta and Beowulf online, The NationalArchives’ online censuses, and the New OpportunitiesFund’s EnrichUK digitisation programme are excellentexamples of how traditionally restricted resources havebeen made available to global audiences. Prioritisation andco-ordination of digitisation needs will be part of ourarchives development programme.At the heart of the Archives Gateway will be the digitisedsignposting and content drawn from archives all over thecountry either supplied directly or by linkages to existingspecialised sources already developed on the web.To encourage take-up use of this content ‘services’ will bedesigned to meet a variety of particular user needs, andallow archives to be mediated to meet the requirements ofspecific users or enquirers. The Archives Gateway is thusa tool to link material and creates context and meaning forenquirers, whether they are a schoolchild, student, localhistorian, business user or someone reconstructing theirfamily tree.Promoting Heritage and CultureCulturenet Cymru is a new body funded by the WelshAssembly Government and based at the National Libraryof Wales, Aberystwyth. It is working to promote Welshheritage and culture, on the domestic scene and globallyvia the internet, and to support formal and informallearning. Its work embraces the arts, heritage, sport,tourism and education. The Culturenet Cymru website(www.culturenetcymru.com) provides information inWelsh and English.Culturenet Cymru has taken over management ofGathering the Jewels, a People’s Network project fundedby NOF-Digitise that aims to make Wale’s culturalresources available online. It brings together for the firsttime the collections held in Welsh museums, libraries,galleries and record offices.Culturenet Cymru is using the internet to make accessible allcollections held in Welsh museums, libraries and archivesAs part of its programme, Culturenet Cymru recently ranthe biggest ever online poll in Wales, ‘100 Welsh Heroes’(won by the firebrand socialist and ‘father of the NHS’Aneurin Bevan). It organises family history days to helppeople trace their family trees, and the digitisation ofimportant Welsh books that are out of print and difficultto locate. During 2004 Culturenet Cymru is running aseminar series on the use of ICT in the culture and heritagesectors in Wales.The Task Force believes that there is a large pool of peoplewho want to be more than passive users of archives thathave been assembled and looked after by professionals.They want to participate in the creation and gatheringof collections themselves. This may be on a comparativelymodest scale, or community-based, but the Task Forceis convinced that such groups have much to offer and canenhance the richness of archives for all. We believe thatpart of the Archives Gateway should be theirs to developas they think appropriate, and if they wish, register theircollections. For example, connecting the postcard collectoron Orkney to the collections of the National Archivesof Scotland may add a new dimension to a great,historic collection.We firmly believe that creating the Archives Gatewaywill be a stimulus and focus for the development of acoordinated resource of a wide range of archives – movingimages, sound, amateur video, music and photographs.Potentially, there are many people keen to developarchives that are especially relevant to modern times. Wehave heard from those already involved how ‘belonging’

Access for All: a Gateway to UK Archivesto the family of archives nationwide can help themcoordinate activities, enhance access to users and takebetter care of their collections. The Archives Gateway willdraw them into the fold to the wider benefit of everybody.27Services could be developed in a number of ways. A‘start here’ service might provide a basic introduction toarchives and their use and provide links to key websites asthe Task Force believes that the Archives Gateway shouldtry to accommodate the needs of all potential users. Somearchive websites can only be fully used by those whoalready have a sophisticated understanding of archives –what they are, how they have come into existence, whatthey contain, how to search them. ‘Start here’ mightalso contain advice on how to form an archive and basicpreventative conservation advice for those wanting toknow how better to care for their own records.Curriculum could feature easy-to-follow teaching materialsto enable teachers to integrate archival records into allareas of the curriculum. It will describe how schools canengage with their local archive services and how schoolscan encourage children to work with members of thecommunity to create their own archives and then registerthem on the Archives Gateway. School work based onarchival records may link into several parts of thecurriculum (not just history) and stimulate comprehension,analysis and writing skills.The interactive nature of the Archives Gateway willempower students and their teachers to create schoolarchive collections that are relevant to their own lives andlocalities. It will provide a practical opportunity todemonstrate the relevance of archives to learning andcurriculum-based studies and promote the use andunderstanding of archives as well as the developmentof information literacy.Opening up a ‘Knowledge Bank’The Royal Bank of Scotland Group holds a nationallyimportant collection of documents relating to the activitiesof its constituent banks over three and a half centuries.For over a decade, the Royal Bank’s archivists haveReproduced by kind permission of The Royal Bank of Scotland Groupworked with teachers and other education professionalsto make this heritage accessible to schoolchildren througha range of teaching resources.All the historical information, images and documents andthe downloadable materials on the Royal Bank’s websitederive from its archives and heritage (www.rbs.co.uk/Group_Information/Memory_Bank/Our_Teaching_Resources/default.htm). They support the teaching ofnational curriculum subject areas: in Scotland,environmental studies and business management, andin England and Wales, Key Stage 2 and 3 history.Through its Understand Finance programme, the RoyalBank encourages secondary school pupils to learn howto manage their personal finances by providing first-classteaching materials and by supporting teachers’ continuousprofessional development.Past Lives: A Royal Bank Account is an interactiveCD-ROM that draws on the bank’s archive collections tosupport the teaching of British history from the 1660s tothe 1960s. It was developed in association with the formerScottish Consultative Council on the Curriculum. In 1998a copy of Past Lives was distributed to every British schoolattended by 9 to 14 year-olds.Digital resources are complementary to, and not areplacement for, access to first-hand experiences witharchival materials. The excitement for some students in

28working with the real materials cannot be underestimated,and can potentially be provided through the existingnetwork of local authority archives. Specialist repositoriesare also well placed to provide diverse content for teachingmaterials to engage teachers and thereby young users.Innovative content and projects are already being deliveredby a number of archive services through the provision ofin-service training, teachers’ packs, homework clubs,outreach activities, targeted projects and visits. Building onthis investment and releasing the learning potential of theUK’s archives will require advocating the role of archivesin teaching programmes with educators and teachers.Engaging teachers and lecturers in the selection andinterpretation process provides opportunities for continuingprofessional development. Raising awareness of archivesas a teaching tool to trainee teachers is crucial, as isestablishing partnerships with schools and otherinstitutions in order to trial resource packs and teachingsessions. To maximise the learning and education potentialof archives will require the establishment of a programmeof advocacy, information and training to raise awarenessamong teaching staff of the potential of archival materialto support the curriculum.A community archives service should be focused verystrongly around community use and identity as well asindividual users and lifelong learning. It will become amajor vehicle to push forward the part that archives canplay in promoting social inclusion, citizenship and socialjustice by using the examples in archives to illuminatecontemporary issues. It will be a place where keepers andmanagers of community-based collections of documents,photographs, and moving image and sound recordingsdraw attention to their archives and where users will beable to search through linked and cross-related contentsets. Interactive facilities will guide and help people torecord their stories and memories. Those interested in thearchives of particular communities will find them allelectronically co-located. The Task Force wishes to engagewith grassroots history and its under-resourcing byinviting those involved to share their experiences, theirenthusiasms, their histories and the digitised contentof their collections in community archives.Commanet, the community archive network serves as a recordof cultural history. Photo: Batley Community ArchiveEngaging Creative CommunitiesCommanet was set up in 2000 to enable communities tocreate their own archives and publish these in digital form.Using basic IT equipment and COMMA, an easy-to-usesoftware package, groups can digitise and storephotographic and video images, text and oral narratives.These databases are published in CD-ROM and onthe Commanet website (www.commanet.org). More than200 projects are underway in the UK, mostly fundedthrough the Lottery Awards for All scheme and basedin community centres, schools, libraries and museums.These projects are successful both in terms ofsustainability and in attracting people who might notusually get involved with formal cultural institutions.The idea for COMMA and Commanet grew out of a localhistory project in Batley, West Yorkshire, where teacherChris Levack assembled a photocopy archive of 5,000family photos brought in by local people. COMMA softwarewas developed by Polkaville, a local software co-operative.Public bodies are increasingly using community archivesto engage with local communities. Examples includeprojects run by the Children’s Society, the National RailwayMuseum, Norfolk Adult Education Department andCHIN (Canadian Heritage Information Network). Despiteits success, Commanet remains a voluntary organisation,run by a small core team with no direct public funding.

Access for All: a Gateway to UK ArchivesCommunity archives is the place where people of all agescan register their own archive in an electronic cataloguewhich will link them to like collections; a place whereinformation from the content within the Archives Gateway(and beyond) can be brigaded under topic areas andinterpreted or mediated by expert historians, geographers,scientists and archivists to produce learning packagestargeted at (researched) needs; a place to convertinformation into more useful knowledge packets.The exchange of information on notice boards and theinterface and interaction with the public sector partof the archives will – the Task Force believes – open upopportunities for greater awareness of the potential of thewidest range of records, new thinking on how theseresources can be harnessed for public benefit andpartnerships to identify common priorities and seek newsources of funding. There are models of good practiceupon which to build, such as The National Archives-ledMoving Here 4 , and there are many other local examples.It will be important to co-ordinate activities such as thelocal authority provision catering for local studies, thenational archival institutions’ provisions for family historyand genealogy studies, and the increasing development ofcommunity-based archives as cultural learning resourcesthat can help to sustain cultural diversity. Services couldbe added or developed in response to demand or availablematerial and resources. The Archives Gateway is anentirely flexible concept.It is the view of the Task Force that two specialist servicesshould be established at the outset. Business Park willaddress two clear archival needs: to create a focal point forbusiness archives and to offer the opportunity to engagewith the business community. A continuing problem inthe UK – a legacy from previous centuries – has been thereluctance to acknowledge the role that commerce andindustry play in supporting and developing the fabric ofsociety. However, the archival records of organisationscould provide useful learning resources to explain to therising generation the role of business past and present.Business Park will also be the place where businessarchives can register themselves and publish informationabout their collections and communicate with each othervirtually, sharing information. Business Park will fosterlinks with public archives and key customer constituenciessuch as schools.Tourist Central will help develop and encourage thegrowing ancestry tourism business by offering guidance tooverseas visitors on how best to prepare for a family historyvisit to the United Kingdom and how best to plan their timewhile they are here. It will enable tourist authorities toassemble family history content which will help potentialvisitors plan their trips as ancestry tourism continues to bea growth point within the tourist industry.All Just a Click Away:the Gateway to UK Archives …• Content storehouse, navigation tool, electronic map• One-stop shop for archival knowledge and advice• Virtual world where the local community archive will standshoulder to shoulder with national archives collections• Rich content for study, work, hobbies, family history orlocation and communities• Major agent for 21st century learning using the KnowledgeWeb and virtual learning environments to link to teachersand students• Curriculum, project work, lifelong learning support forchildren and families• Prepare for visits to the source material in archivesand records offices• Foster citizenship and community identity througha growing fabric of community groups and archives.• Celebrate cultural diversity and cultural historiesto be valued and respected• Grow new genres of archive – sound archives, digital, film,video archives – and enable electronic communitiesof interest and expertise to develop• Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in partnershipwith key stakeholder agencies• Cost-effective solution utilising existing infrastructureand personnel where possible29

30 The Wider Digital EnvironmentWe must make quite clear why we believe that thefirst priority is access to archival records, and not theidentification of particular archival institutions. Anyoneinvolved in the creation of digital resources and servicesor using them will be well aware that searching forinformation and knowledge no longer begins with theidentification of a particular institution, whether archive,library or museum. A simple search using an internetcommercial search engine soon demonstrates the richdiversity of institutions and individuals offeringinformation, whether good, bad or indifferent.Given the wide distribution of resources that may only berelated by the needs of a particular user, an important taskof the Archives Gateway will be to focus on subject andrelevance. For the searcher new to a subject, it is only atthe point where the search is refined to a small number ofdigital objects, or collection signposts, that they may needto be aware of the institution that holds the archive, objector collection. For maximum accessibility, this practicalreality must underpin the design of Archives Gateway andwill align it within the broader development frameworkfor networked information services. It will not, of course,exclude the direct, institutional approach of thepurposive researcher.The ambition is to make easily available for the first timein one place access to collections of documents, movingimages, sound and oral history recordings, photographs,digital records, objects, books and other documentsexplaining the histories, cultures and creativity whichtogether make up the picture of the nation, past andpresent. This ambition already underpins the developmentof the Linking Arms work programme, the EnrichUKproject and most recently the work of the nationalCommon Information Environment Group in which MLAand The National Archives share membership with Higherand Further Education, the National Health Service, theBritish Library, the British Educational Communicationsand Technology Agency (Becta), The Stationery Office,Culture Online and the e-Science Core Programme. TheGateway to Archives would build on all the developmentalwork already done within the archives domain and fits intoboth the Common Information Environment Group’sproposed technical specification and its plannedoutcomes.The approach meets all the requirements we have definedfor the Archives Gateway. It is specifically intended togather resources from a variety of sources on the basis ofwhat is the best fit for the user. Thus the first-time searcherneed not know about archives generally or specifically toobtain useful information as part of a search. Mostimportantly the system makes it possible to widen therange of content and ‘sharpen’ searches much more thanconventional search engines are able to do. This meansthat it is possible to present archival resources to a rangeof existing online services and thus add value to them atmarginal cost. Examples of this might be the increasedavailability of archival information through educationalassets such as Curriculum Online or tourism services suchas VisitBritain.com. There would be mutual benefit sincewider audiences would be reached through the marketingand development activities of other service providers whilethose providers would have the richness of the archivalheritage available to them.Given the emerging umbrella framework of the CommonInformation Environment Group it is possible forinvestment in the Archives Gateway to be focused in anumber of critical areas that will bring rapid benefitsto potential users and to the archive services themselves.These areas are:• Connecting all publicly-funded archives to broadbandand providing appropriate hardware and training in useif required (could use the MLA People’s Networkdevelopment programme model)• Market studies to establish priorities for user demandand identify potential partners• Programmes to digitise archival documents focusedon popular themes and topics (could be based on theEnrichUK model)• Programmes to signpost significant collections throughappropriate description• New services, for example, learning packages for thepurposive archival resource user, learning resources

Access for All: a Gateway to UK ArchivesIt is possible topresent archivalresources to a rangeof existing onlineservices and thusadd value to them atmarginal cost.

32 for formal education, packages to support particularcommunities of interestProgrammes already exist that could encompass theseareas and there is no new fundamental research ordevelopment required to implement them. Thus, giventhe necessary investment, programme start up will bevery rapid.Looking Forward to theKnowledge WebMLA is implementing a campaign of advocacy (Investingin Knowledge) that includes within it a proposal to use theCommon Information Environment approach to createseamless access to the collections and servicesof museums, libraries and archives in the way that isproposed for archival collections within the ArchivesGateway. This proposal – the Knowledge Web – ifsuccessful, will offer to everyone an amazing storehouseof knowledge of all types. Programmes such as thecreation of technical infrastructure and digitisation willcall for new investment, but within the existing workprogramme of MLA there is the potential to pilot userenvironments and undertake the planning and programmedevelopment that will be necessary. The Task Forcetherefore believes that while success will only come frombroad support across the whole of the domain andbeyond, through partnership collaboration, MLA andThe National Archives must lead jointly the planningand implementation of the Gateway.The Archives Gateway would bring to the Knowledge Webthe means to enable users to search for the materialrelating to a specific place, person, topic etc. and bringit together for the user without their needing to know theprior existence of archives, and to enable those resourcesto be integrated with others from museums and libraries.Users can search from school, home or through thePeople’s Network terminals in libraries.programme of development proposed by the KnowledgeWeb offers much more, creating user environmentsdesigned to match particular styles of searching andlearning, providing context and meaning for the enquirerwhether schoolchild, student, local historian, businessperson or someone exploring their own interests. Thewhole purpose is to match the right resources to thesearchers’ particular needs without their need to knowabout supply mechanisms. Providing that searchmechanisms are sufficiently flexible and sophisticated, it isonly once the resources have been presented to the userthat it matters where the information has come from. Weare convinced that as richer, more relevant information isprovided and more digital surrogates are created, manyusers will become more purposive in their behaviour andwish to explore more deeply.How will this be Implemented?It is certain that much of this will be done in partnershipbetween the archives community and others. For,example, services to support education will be developedwithin the context of Curriculum Online and other learningprojects. And partnerships will certainly help long-termsustainability through funding and a sense of ownershipby the particular partnership mix. However, to enable theArchives Gateway to become a reality will require strongleadership, commitment from all parts of the archivesdomain and tangible support from stakeholders andfunders in the UK.There will of course be technical challenges. The NationalArchives and the National Council on Archives are alreadyinvestigating how best to link together the existingprofessional networks. Much of the necessary knowledgeis already out there and ready to be tapped for the benefitof archives and their users. It requires only the marshallingof that knowledge to meet those needs.Of course, the Task Force’s vision is not simply oneof several reservoirs of raw information. The rounded

Access for All: a Gateway to UK ArchivesRecommendation OneCreate a Gateway to UK Archives which would giveeveryone the opportunity to participate in the archivalheritage (see also Appendix B: Archive networkingdevelopments to date).Action 1The creation of technical infrastructure within archives• Connecting publicly-funded archives to the internetthrough broadband• Information and communications technology trainingfor archive workers• Agree technical standards for the GatewayAction 2Market studies to establish priorities for user demandand identify potential partnersAction 3Programmes to digitise archival documents focusedon popular themes and topicsAction 4Programmes to signpost significant collections throughcollection level descriptionAction 5New services for the archival user, for example,packages to support particular communities of interest(children, students, tourists and businesses)Much of thenecessary knowledgeis already out thereand ready to betapped for the benefitof archives and theirusers.334. Moving Here funded through the New Opportunities Fund Digitisestrand of the People’s Network programme. It is a database of digitisedphotographs, maps, objects, documents and audio items from 30 localand national archives, museums and libraries which record migrationexperiences of the last 200 years. www.movinghere.org.uk

4Developing Archives and AudiencesArchives are asource of creativityfor writers, designers,architects, filmmakersand schoolchildren. Theysupport the creativeeconomy byproviding a sourceof inspiration.34 However sophisticated the Archives Gateway is inattracting people to use and explore our archival heritage,it will only ever be as good as the various services,organisations, groups and individuals providing the rawmaterial and the professional support. That fact is certainlytrue in the presentation of material for those searching forinformation remotely, where they will need trusted andskilled help to gain confidence and long-term benefit, but itis just as true of the physical collections of archives.The Archives Gateway is a user-friendly means of enteringthe world of the archive, but the enthusiast may want tovisit the collections at some stage. Moreover, if we are tobuild a network that is able to capture the present for thefuture, we believe it is essential that the network embracecollections of all types and, where necessary, positiveaction is taken to encourage the creation of centres wherenew media can be preserved safely and made accessibleto potential users.This chapter will address these issues by looking atawareness raising, highlight the economic value ofarchives and records management activity (includingcommercial activities), analyse how archives can besupported to stimulate learning opportunities, and identifya number of particular collection-types that will requirespecific positive support actions.Advocacy for Archivesand Profile RaisingA review of the position of archives in the UK mustemphasise the issue of their perception within the politicaland wider public profile. Despite the issues of citizens’rights, community identity and the potential for educationand life-long learning they contain, archives have so farlargely failed to win the attention of politicians and policymakers. For example, a comparison of political and policyprofile demonstrates that archives are the least well-knowndomain within the sector supported by MLA and similarresults are found in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.While profile-raising work has been carried out by bodiessuch as the National Council on Archives, and in England,

36 the Regional Agencies for museums, libraries and archivesand the network of Regional Archive Councils, the TaskForce proposes that further profile-raising and advocacyprogrammes should be developed to ensure that the UK’sarchival inheritance is better understood by policymakers.This could form a component of a marketing and advocacyplan that could co-ordinate the promotion of the domainwithin wider programmes of action, such as MLA’sInvesting in Knowledge campaign.Campaigns such as the successful 2003 ArchiveAwareness Month are welcome in that they represent newand imaginative ways of trying to tackle this issue.However lessons from individual initiatives should nowbe fed into a strategic review out of which should bedeveloped a Marketing Plan for archives in the UK.Promoting Awareness MonthLed by The National Council on Archives, ArchiveAwareness Month in September 2003 was the firstco-ordinated effort by the archives domain to address itslow public profile. Its main objectives were to raiseawareness of how archives are relevant today, and toencourage non-users to participate in events.Under a national marketing campaign on the theme of“Love and Hate”, more than 475 events took place, fromthe Highlands to Penzance, from Cork to Lowestoft,involving more than 200 organisations. The key message,conveyed by the strapline “Everyone has a history andwe’ve got a bit of yours”, was that archives are open,accessible and have something to offer everyone.Archive Awareness month was a real success. Evaluationrevealed that over 41% of participants had never visitedan archive before, and 40% thought that the event hadchanged their perception of archives. After attending aWriting a Parish History workshop at Salford DiocesanArchives, one new archive user commented, “There is avery human dimension to archives. It is about people andit is for people.”This Gaiety Theatre Programme was displayed at Ayrshire Archives as partof the ‘Archives on Stage’ exhibition. Photo: Ayrshire ArchivesEconomic DevelopmentCreativityArchives are a source of creativity for writers, designers,architects, film-makers and school children. They supportthe creative economy by providing a source of inspiration.Material derived from archives have inspired designers inthe production of textiles, carpets, wallpapers and otherfurnishings. Each year millions of people experience therichness of UK audio-visual and other archive collectionsthrough presentations and educational work and throughthe incorporation of film footage and archival imagesinto television programmes. These collections provideknowledge and entertainment and touch people’s livesin cinemas, classrooms, community centres, art centres,universities, museums, libraries, on television and onthe internet.Regeneration and RenewalA continuing problem in attracting new audiences toarchives is the condition and location of building stock.Often buildings are old and in poor condition, which can

Developing Archives and Audiencescreate an unappealing impression, and often offer poorfacilities for effective stewardship of collections. Whilstrecognising the significant investment made by some localauthorities in archives over the past ten years (for examplethe recent Essex Record Office), current levels of supportby those responsible for managing local services must bemaintained. An overall uplift in core funding wouldradically transform UK archives. As an aspirational goal,capital investment in the order of £30–£50 million forupgrades of premises over the next five to ten years wouldrevitalise archives for all.Increasingly, new archive buildings, may be funded bygrant support from the Heritage Lottery Fund or by localauthorities. Many have been developed in partnership withother public services such as museums, exhibition spaces,cafes and meeting rooms. The locations of these centresare acting as a catalyst for renewal in areas of regenerationand can provide opportunities for employment, trainingand learning for local people. Good examples include theSurrey History Centre, Norfolk Record Office (and the EastAnglian Film Archive), The Women’s Library and theYorkshire Film Archive (sharing accommodation with TheCollege of York St. John, a higher education learningcentre). The 2001 Survey of Visitors to British Archives bythe Public Services Quality Group found that for 87% ofusers, visiting the archive was their main purpose forvisiting an area, and while there 29% ate out locally, 36%used local shops and services and 18% visited otherplaces of interest, supporting local economic growth.Developing IT TrainingIT training opportunities at Glasgow University Archives Service arehelping unemployed people back into workDriving Licence) training. By creating work placements forstudents who have completed their ECDL course, GUASprovides a career stepping-stone from basic IT training toarchives work.So far, through 15 work placements, the scheme has ledto three graduates becoming archivists. Angie Thomsoncomments, “The GUAS placement has allowed me tochange my career path in a direction that I knew I wantedto go but could not see how to get there.”The scheme also benefits GUAS by bringing new talentinto the archives services. Says Director of GUAS, LesleyRichmond, “We can provide the training and experiencethat people require to apply for professional trainingopportunities, while the archives profession gains newrecruits who bring ‘real’ experience of record creation andmanagement.”37Over the last 25 years, Glasgow University ArchiveServices (GUAS) has been involved with variousgovernment-funded initiatives to provide a range of ITtraining opportunities. These have largely been aimed atlocal unemployed people, including university graduates,who can benefit from new skills learned in a workplaceenvironment.A recent development centres on the University ofGlasgow’s in-house Universal Training Solutions team,which provides facilities for ECDL (European ComputerTourismAs the UK’s sixth largest industry, tourism is a crucialcomponent of the country’s economy. VisitBritain, theorganisation that markets Britain to the rest of the world,estimates that the volume of inbound tourism will increaseby 3.3 per cent in 2004, taking the total number of visitorsto 25.5 million. The value of inbound tourism is forecast togrow in 2004 to £12.3 billion.

An interest in thepast transcendssocial boundaries: inthis respect archivesare socially inclusiveinstitutions.

Developing Archives and AudiencesThe ArchivesGateway … couldplay an importantpart in any campaignto promote theattractions of theUK as a heritagetourist destination.The ancestral tourism market has local, regional andnational potential. Family History is one of the fastestgrowing recreational interests in the world and is in the topfive of the most popular topics for internet searching. Manypeople have a strong urge to visit the places where theirancestors lived, and research has emphasised theimportance in the visitor experience of visiting places oforigin and the excitement of touching original documents.Ancestral tourism has been recognised as a significantniche market, and one with growth potential for bothpublic and commercial sectors. Archives have respondedby developing websites such as ScotlandsPeople.gov.uk,the official government source of genealogical data forScotland, to support these needs.39Archives have a central role to play in the developmentof this market, attracting overseas visitors, and improvingthe quality of visitor experience. The Archives Gateway,with easy access to all kinds of archives will be certain toencourage greater ancestry tourism, and provide additionalopportunities to attract new visitors and new investment.It could play an important part in any campaign topromote the attractions of the UK as a heritage touristdestination. In Scotland, genealogical tourism isrecognised as an important contributor to local economicgrowth and in Northern Ireland it is being seen as an areafor rapid development.Commercial ActivitiesThere is evidence that many archives work to turn theircollections to commercial advantage, to generate income.Enterprise activities such as paid research services,publishing, the sale of books, images (through imagelibraries) and related historical and heritage merchandisehave all been successfully used for income generation.Large-scale operations such as those run by The NationalTrust have developed this into a thriving business. TheNational Archives has developed highly sophisticatedcorporate and commercial activities, ranging from imageand brand licensing to publishing, retailing and venuehire. Commercial film archives and national and regionalfilm and television archives have raised revenue throughsales of copies of images and footage to the media.

40We suggest that all archives must be encouraged toexplore appropriate opportunities to enhance visitorexperiences and to create much-needed income.Commercial opportunity has also been realised throughthe development of paid-for online services. A number ofpublicly funded and run archives have taken the view thatcost recovery and profit should be achieved for such extraservices. Customer research shows that the market (largelycomposed of ‘leisure’ family historians) expects and iswilling to pay for such services. There is much commercialcompetition for services specifically tailored for this market(e.g. www.ancestry.com), and within this context, chargedservices provided by the public sector represent a fairdeal to the user, whilst boosting revenue for the service.Many of these developments have taken place in largerinstitutions. We recognise that for other institutions therewill be barriers to the development of such added-valueservices, such as:• Capacity: small archives (often run on a shoestring budgetwith one or two staff) are unable to devote time to suchschemes and initiatives• Cost: high initial outlay and start-up costs are beyondthe reach of many archivesPlanning constraints: Archives are unable to plan• long-term; e.g. local authorities want to see immediatereturns on investment rather than longer-term five yearreturns• Incentive: there is often little incentive for archives togenerate income as financial regulations mean thatincome earned does not accrue directly to the service.Charities also face particular issues over incomegeneration activities.Archives need to be supported to explore these issuesand partnership is a solution to overcoming these barriers.One model might be to establish a Business DevelopmentForum to encourage innovation, share expertise andformulate partnerships for service delivery.Information ManagementWe strongly believe that records managers and archivistsacross the UK are making a real difference to businesseconomy and efficiency by managing informationeffectively, and ensuring businesses meet their legislativerecord-keeping obligations. Records managementprogrammes (dealing with the creation, maintenance, useand disposal of records and making the information theycontain available in support of day-to-day business) makesound fiscal sense in both the private and public sector.This is essential with the growing complexity of digitalinformation where the risk of long-term loss is real.A recent report from AXA Insurance suggests 80% ofbusinesses affected by a major incident never reopen orcease trading within 18 months. Effective back-up plansto preserve business data can ensure that business is upand running again within hours.Recommendation TwoPosition UK archives as key contributors to national,social and economic objectives.Action 1Create a UK Archives Strategic Marketing Plan as themeans of co-ordinating the promotion of and developingaudiences for archivesAction 2Co-ordinate a programme of evidence gathering onarchives and their contribution to local, regional andnational, social and economic objectives (to be used aspart of the wider advocacy campaign for archives)Action 3Develop a programme of advocacy to promote the valueof archives in support of the social and learning agendasand to develop professional awarenessAction 4Establish a Business Development Group for innovationand partnership to assist archives to maximizecommercial opportunities

Developing Archives and AudiencesLearning for All framework can be used to transform theway in which archives engage users in learning.41Boosting Basic SkillsHampshire Record Office Educational Service is making archives moreaccessible to adults and children through practical activitiesLearning and Social InclusionArchives – like museums and libraries – can provideresources and stimulation for personal developmentthrough education and learning. People can drawinspiration from material in archives and use it to helpthem with formal or informal learning or enjoy anabsorbing recreational interest. Every visit paid by the oneand a half million people who visit archives each year isa learning experience, whatever their age or level ofeducational attainment. Each venture into the mass ofdocuments or images is a personally-structured researchjourney, in which the user learns how to assemble,analyse and interpret evidence; getting to grips with newways of living and thinking.Archives have a valuable contribution to make in enrichingthe national curriculum – studying history is a significantwork area for key stage 2 students. Archives can help tounderstand local communities and provide both teachersand pupils with a sense of place within their local area andwithin history. An example of good practice in this area canbe found in Gloucestershire Record Office where aCD-Rom (funded through the Department for Educationand Skills Museums and Galleries Education Programme)has been developed and piloted to support the study oflocal history. Archives can be used to help groups at risk ofsocial exclusion by offering unusual but imaginative routesto engagement with their lives and the wider community,and can provide innovative and creative content for basicskills work with both children and adults. Archives clearlyhave much to offer and tools such as the MLA’s InspiringHampshire Record Office is looking at how its work cancontribute to adult basic skills provision. It runs regular‘beginners’ sessions for people new to using archives,as well as education workshops for schools and colleges.It has also been involved in projects aimed at improvingaccess to archival materials, including Landlord toLabourer (an Access to Archives project) and the WiderAccess to Film project, based on Wessex Film and SoundArchive.The beginners sessions were set up following requestsfrom user groups. They provide guidance on using therecord office’s services, and show how archives can helpto improve adult literacy. Introductory sessions explorefamily and local history, using original archival materials.The sessions help to develop writing, reading, search andresearch skills. Education Officer David Bond comments,“We wouldn’t necessarily think that we’re teaching basicskills, but in reality we are.”Can working with archives inspire adults to improve theirbasic literacy skills? “Absolutely,” says David Bond,“because the documents relate to real people, they’re quiteoften stories people can look at and stories that have arelevance today.” Hampshire Record Office is developingits support for adult basic skills by making links with adultand family learning providers.Interaction with local archives has provided positiveexperiences for young people in raising personalaspirations and developing the value of their localenvironment. Local and community archives act as astimulus for understanding personal heritage in the contextof their locality. Projects such as the Black History Projectrun by Lambeth Archives have been designed to dispelstereotypical views of black people and to foster interestand pride among local communities.

42information that teachers did not previously have access toand a highly motivating factor for the children.”Westminster City Archives hold records of diverse cultural history, such asthis Indian Army victory march in 1919. Photo: City of WestminsterArchives CentreRaising Cultural AwarenessWestminster City Archives wanted to fill a gap in thehistory of Westminster over the past 500 years bygathering material relating to the district’s blackcommunity. Community organisations collaborated on alively programme of events under the banner “Celebratingthe Black Presence in Westminster 1500–2000.”The project produced learning resources, includingresource packs, a CD-ROM and an online exhibition,which were circulated free to all Westminster schools,libraries and community centres. A programme of eventsfor Black History Month included school visits to theArchives Centre and outreach visits by the ArchiveEducation Officer. There were events at libraries andcommunity centres, seminars for employers and adulteducation classes.The project addressed concerns about how black peopleare represented in the media, in school and in society. Itemphasised positive images of black people and helped toestablish new links between the archives and blackcommunities. A report on the project concluded thatschools welcomed the “high-quality and useful resources”it created and noted that, “The local relevance of thesources seemed to be particularly important, providingAnother significant area for archives is in enabling teachersto maintain specialist subject knowledge as part of theircontinuing professional development. Such benefits touchobjectives of organisations such as the Department forEducation and Skills (formal education, lifelong learning,adult basic skills, personal development) and the Office ofthe Deputy Prime Minister (social exclusion,neighbourhood renewal) and the aspirations and policiesof the devolved administrations. It is therefore importantfor action to be taken to raise awareness within thoseorganisations about the value of the work of archives andalso to inform archive professionals of the importance ofdeveloping their services to engage with these socialagendas.Recommendation ThreeRelease the potential of archives to enrich and enhanceteaching and learning and contribute to raising standardsin education.Action 1Work with stakeholders to develop programmes that willraise awareness of the value of ‘hands on’ experienceof the archival heritage. Engage teachers in the processesof interpretation to maintain and develop specialistsubject knowledge.Action 2Develop learning resources for formal education.Connecting with CommunitiesUsing archives to study the history of a community, or acommunity group creating a record of their lives andenvironments are both ways that can help people cometogether. Some archive services have long-establishedprogrammes of community development work. We havefound clear examples of good practice, for example, theLondon Metropolitan Archives has a long tradition ofworking with the Jewish community in London to preserveand celebrate its heritage and many archives support

Developing Archives and AudiencesThis young Protestant football team played against their Catholicneighbours, despite a divided community. Photo: Star of the Seas,under 15s, Twinbrook, including Bobby SandsBlack History Month with a creative and diverse rangeof activities. Work by Commanet, and The Linking ArmsCommunity Access to Archives Project are developing ourunderstanding of this important area of work. The TaskForce firmly believes that such initiatives should be apriority for publicly-funded services.Community ArchivesCommunity archives are hard to define. The Task Forcehas found evidence of geographical, cultural and thematiccommunities of interest. The growth of communityarchives has been an important development in recentyears, and has part stemmed from a desire by individualsand groups to record and share culturally diverseexperiences and stories. This grassroots movement is anexpression of the often strongly felt need to celebrate,record, and rebuild the sense of community in our livestoday. The creation of such collections which can containphotographs, moving images, ephemera, personaldocuments and papers and oral history contributes to themaking of local or community history itself and adds a newand rich source to the work of publicly-funded archiveservices.Contributing to Community CohesionThe ability of Commanet projects (see page 28) to givea new slant to local heritage and bring people togetheris illustrated by Twinbrook Community Archive, based ona nationalist housing estate in Belfast. Here volunteerarchivists have garnered a wealth of material relating toboth Protestant and Catholic community memory.Founder member of the Twinbrook archive, JohnMcPhillips, sees it as a resource for helping young peopleto understand their area’s history, in particular thesectarian conflict that has shaped it since the early 1970s.Despite the difficulties of overcoming this history ofconflict, there are hopes that community archiving couldhelp to heal divided communities. At the Ulster People’sCollege, Karen McCartney provides support for Commanetgroups in Northern Ireland. She envisages a future role forCommanet in “building up community confidence andbuilding up networks through which people can sharestories.”Internationally, there’s widespread interest in whatCommanet offers to divided or isolated communities.A project in Cyprus is using COMMA software to promotereconciliation between Greek and Turkish communities.The Canadian Heritage Information Network is using aversion of COMMA software to enable 500 voluntarymuseums to create on-line ‘exhibits’ for the VirtualMuseum of Canada.The Task Force wants to encourage the growth of suchcollections. This is a ‘bottom up’ movement that willembed the importance of archives in the minds of manyand help create one of the most dynamic elements in theArchives Gateway. The Task Force is fully committed to theprinciple that the resources in community archivalcollections should be accessible to everyone, and thatarchives in the community are as important to society asthose in public collections.We therefore propose the establishment of a network ofregional Community Archive Liaison Officers to encourageindividual and community management participation andpromote the sharing of expertise, skills and enthusiasmwith the professional sector, and develop appropriateapproaches to access. There is much that the professionalarchival community can give in terms of knowledge andunderstanding of practical technical and historical issuesand much that can be mutually gained throughpartnerships between the wider community, communityarchives and the established archive domain.43

44archives strengthened. It acknowledges the potential forgreater involvement of the business sector and thepotential for linking businesses to schools enablingstudents to explore how organisations impact on thecommunity and on the economy.Supporting Classroom LearningNicky Sugar with students from the Royal Free Hospital School in 2000.Photo: Royal Free Hampstead NHS TrustRecommendation FourIncrease community participation in UK archiveactivities with particular focus on engaging hard-to-reachcommunities.Action 1Investigate the establishment of, and pilot CommunityArchive Liaison Officers to support the developmentof community archives and foster links between existingarchives and record offices and the wider community.Developing Collections for the21st CenturyBusiness, Private and SpecialistArchivesWhere constraints of confidentiality and legal regulationallow, many businesses, private sector and other specialistorganisations make their archives available to the publicfor study without receiving any public funding. The TaskForce welcomes this participation as organisations outsidethe public and government domain are a rich source ofarchival material. For example, changes in UK businessesover the last thirty years have put many records at risk andthese are an increasingly important part of our archivalheritage. The Task Force recognises and values businessand specialist archives, including moving image andsound archives, as an integral part of the culture, heritageand information assets of the UK and wishes to see theseLong stays in hospital can be miserable for children, notonly because they’re missing home but also through theirseparation from school life. Using the hospital’s owncollections of documents, photographs, registers anduniforms, archive staff at London’s Royal Free Hospitaldevised a programme of history lessons for the children’sward school.The Royal Free’s archivist Nicky Sugar helped teachers todevelop lesson plans including literacy and numeracyelements. Classes were held in the wards and, for childrenwell enough to go there, at the hospital’s archive centre.Lessons were punctuated by ‘detective tasks’, in whichchildren used the archives and artefacts to make theirown discoveries.Children learned useful skills, and archive and teachingstaff saw how the archive could be used in new ways.Nicky Sugar said, “I was keen to make links between thearchive and the community, and I realised that it’s not veryoften that you have a school and an archive under thesame roof … It was a difficult group, because of all thedifferent needs the children had, but we could see ithelping to give them new confidence.” There are plans fora new series of lessons in 2004.Connecting Corporate MemoriesBT’s Connected Earth project, launched in 2002,represents a unique collaboration between the corporate,public and independent heritage sectors. It shows howcreative solutions to providing access to a physicalcollection – in this case the collection oftelecommunications artefacts amassed by BT and itspredecessors – can combine the traditional strengths of

Developing Archives and AudiencesConnected Earth is managed by BT’s corporate memoryteam, which also has responsibility for the company’sarchive collections. BT continues to maintain its archivesin-house, and BT Archives has begun the major task ofintegrating the former BT Museum’s documentarycollections. By investing in the maintenance of its artefactcollection within national museums, while retainingresponsibility for the company’s important archivalinformation assets in-house, BT believes Connected Earthrepresents a model for the responsible management andfuture preservation of a corporate heritage collection withina secure, sustainable framework.45Children at Brampton Manor School, East London, try the EducationCentre on BT’s Connected Earth for themselves. Photo: BT Archivesarchival and museum displays with the new possibilitiesopened up by information technology.The project was developed following the closure of theformer BT Museum at Blackfriars, London – whichattracted only 26,000 visitors each year. Under ConnectedEarth, the Museum’s 40,000 artefacts were distributedamong nine museums around the UK with existing‘communications’ collections, to widen access beyondthose able to visit London. BT is funding new galleries atseven of these sites.A parallel major strand of BT’s £6 million investment inConnected Earth is the creation of a web-based virtualmuseum (www.connected-earth.com), which containsthousands of images with accompanying information.www.connected-earth.com showcases BT’s archive andartefact collections, arranging them in themes or‘journeys’, through which users can follow the story ofhuman communications from the earliest times to thedigital age. The website provides multimedia resourcesincluding film clips, oral history interviews, games andeducational projects linked to the different nationalcurriculum key stages. Most importantly, it is availableat any time to anyone anywhere in the world who hasinternet access.“Connected Earth represents an unrivalled opportunity tosupport the government drive to increase access to ourheritage collections, combining two of BT’s greateststrengths – our long history with our technical innovationand excellence.”David Hay, Head of Corporate Memory, BTThe Task Force supports the development of inclusivestrategies for specialist, business and private archives topromote access, ensure effective stewardship ofcollections, and ensure that all archives are engaged inarchive domain initiatives where appropriate. Thestrategies must be developed collaboratively with thestrong engagement of the owners of the private archives.The Task Force endorses the creation of environments(such as informal fora and e-networks) for owners andcustodians of publicly-accessible specialist archives toempower such archives and to share experience. Thisapproach could inform the development of strategies forbusiness, private and specialist archives.Preserving and DevelopingPrivate CollectionsThere are many smaller archives which have come intobeing for a variety of reasons. Many of these collectionsreceive high standards of care and remain in-situ preciselybecause their owners regard them as being worthy of

46The new Yorkshire Film Archive premises are part of the FoundationLearning Centre, Yorkpreservation, and are motivated by a belief that it isimportant to preserve and share these historical assets.However, we recognize that even the best arrangementsmay not be stable in the long term if they are dependent onone generation of a family or the continued profitability of abusiness. The owners of private archives are free to dowith them as they will and this material remains at risk.Other collections are at risk because they are notrecognised as such by their holding bodies (whoseprincipal objective may be entirely unrelated to theiraccumulation of archives), or because their holding bodiesno longer wish to retain them and there is no obviousalternative home for them.One option might be for private institutional owners ofarchives (specialist repositories) who make them availablefor study in the public interest to be eligible in certaincircumstances for funding incentives/tax concessions toassist them in the care and maintenance of their holdingsto professional standards and in the provision of accessfacilities. The recent Goodison Review of tax treatment forcollections donated to the nation includes a number ofsuggestions which would improve the managementof such transfers in the future.The Task Force suggests that it is essential that the rescuerole of key archive organisations such as the BritishRecords Association, The National Cataloguing Unit for theArchives of Contemporary Scientists, (based at theUniversity of Bath), The Business Archives Council andThe Business Archives Council of Scotland be furtherstrengthened. The Task Force strongly advocatescollaboration and partnership between such agencies andthe Heritage Lottery Fund, The National Archives, theBritish Library, national museums, the Regional Agenciesfor museums, libraries and archives and devolvedadministrations, to develop activities such as surveys ofvulnerable collections (for example those relating toscientists, architects, archaeological archive collections,and medical collections) and the capacity to respond tothreats to collections at risk.Recommendation FiveEncourage business, private and specialist archives todevelop as integrated component parts of our heritage.Action 1Develop national strategies for business, private andspecialist archives.Action 2Support the creation of learning tools helping bridge thegap between formal education and the business world.Action 3Investigate financial and/or tax incentives to supportprivate institutional archives that are made available forpublic study.Action 4Create mechanisms for rapid response to threatsto collections at risk.Action 5Create environments to bring together businesses, privateowners and specialist archives to support preservationand development of such collections.Moving Image and SoundArchivesConcurrently with the work of the Task Force a UK-wideAudiovisual Archives Strategy has been developed. Thestrategy (led by the Film Archive Forum and the BritishLibrary Sound Archive, and funded by MLA) 5 is a blueprintfor audiovisual archival development across the UK. Thestrategy concludes that because of a lack of public policiesdesigned to provide a strategic framework for thedevelopment and sustainability of the audiovisual archivesector, it has not benefited from the same kind of publicinvestment in its preservation, documentation and itsavailability to the public.The Archives Task Force supports the keyrecommendations of the Strategy. Audiovisual archivesand stakeholders should come together to develop an

Developing Archives and AudiencesThe Bangladeshi Youth and Cultural Shomiti learn how to recordinterviews to chart the history of their community at the East MidlandsOral History Archiveaudiovisual archive forum, to develop funding,communicate best practice and advocate for this sector ofthe archives domain, and work closely with nationalarchive bodies across the UK. In addition a framework forinstitutional provision should be created in which national,regional and local responsibilities are defined in relation toeach other and to ensure comprehensive coverage forsound and moving image archive activity throughoutthe UK.Recording People’s HistoriesThe East Midlands Oral History Archive (EMOHA) is apartnership between the Centre for Urban History at theUniversity of Leicester, Leicestershire County Council andLeicester City Museums and Library Services. Fundedby the Heritage Lottery Fund, the project has establishedthe first large-scale oral history archive for Leicestershire& Rutland. As well as bringing together more than20 existing collections, it has generated new oral historyrecordings through its own programme of interviewing.In October 2003 EMOHA ran an oral history training dayfor a group of 11 to 14 year-olds from the BangladeshiYouth and Cultural Shomiti. The young people wereintroduced to the use of recording equipment and taughthow to structure oral history interviews. “What theywanted to do,” says Research and Outreach Officer ColinHyde, “was to come up with questions they could ask theelders in the Bangladeshi community about how coming toBritain had changed things for them. I was prettyimpressed by their list.”The services provided by EMOHA include advice, trainingand support for community groups, museums andheritage organisations, students and other individuals whoare interested in developing their own projects. Recordingsare deposited in the Record Office for Leicestershire,Leicester & Rutland.Digital ArchivesAt virtually every stage of the Task Force’s investigations,archivists, records managers and users have told of thechallenges of digital preservation to make sure that therecords of today, created in digital form (and often existingonly in digital form), will be preserved for futuregenerations like their paper predecessors. This is achallenge of great importance if we are to be able to call toaccount in the future those who make decisions on ourbehalf or who take actions that affect our own lives andthose of our children. The Task Force welcomes the workof The National Archives, (which is leading the way ondeveloping electronic records management activities), theDigital Preservation Coalition and Regional Agencies formuseums, libraries and archives, which are workingtogether to co-ordinate approaches to address theseissues, including proposals for pilot projects within theEnglish regions. It is clear that archives cannot addressthese alone, and only through partnerships willsustainable solutions be found and implemented.Recommendation SixEncourage the creation and sustainability of movingimage, sound, photographic and digital archives throughsupport for relevant strategies.Action 1Support the implementation the UK Audiovisual ArchivesStrategy developed by the Audiovisual Archive StrategySteering Group.Action 2Encourage regional partnership strategies for thesustainable management and preservation of digitalrecords.47

5 Modernisation and Workforce DevelopmentIt is not just aquestion of financialinvestment butan intellectualinvestment that willrequire significantre-evaluation ofattitudes, perceptionsand priorities.48 Extensive consultation by the Task Force has identifiedsignificant areas for development – modernisation,education and learning, sustainability and participation –to achieve the vision of an archival heritage fully revealedand open to all citizens. This will require targeted andstrategic investment to make a real long-term differenceto services for users and to the care of the UK’s archivalheritage. It is not just a question of financial investmentbut an intellectual investment that will require significantre-evaluation of professional attitudes, perceptionsand priorities.This will mark a new way of working, new ways ofdelivering services and new ways of user involvement.It is a challenge that many in the archive domain arealready championing through innovative and creativeprojects. The Regional Agencies for museums, librariesand archives, the Regional Archive Councils, the ScottishCouncil on Archives and the Archives Council Waleshave all made significant contributions to progress.ChallengesArchives, as organisations that are in the businessof collecting and preserving the records of the past inperpetuity, must themselves possess stability andviability. Stewardship, which encompasses collectionsmanagement, preservation and conservation, cataloguingand documentation, building management and standards,is the cornerstone on which access to the UK’s unique anddiverse cultural, historic and information resources rests.Good collections management ensures that the archivalinheritance remains physically and intellectually accessiblefor current and future generations.Detailed research 6 by the archives domain andconsultation by the Task Force have identified significantareas of under-investment in the UK public sectorarchives. Under-investment in the infrastructure hasresulted in inadequate buildings, poor public facilitiesto study and use archives, large backlogs of uncatalogued(and therefore inaccessible) collections, limited capacityfor outreach activities and commercial growth, and pooropportunities for staff development.

50 The Task Force is confident that creating the ArchivesGateway will be an important step towards addressingthese issues by raising awareness and expectations amongarchive workers and users, and by demonstrating thedemand for archive services to funders. The searchresources of the Archives Gateway will help to encouragegreater accessibility as new connections and opportunitiesare revealed.• users can access catalogue entries, digitised images,contextual information and individual learning pathsthrough the Archives Gateway;• onsite public services meet the expectations of 21stcentury users and complement user-focused technologicaldevelopments;• a properly skilled workforce is in place to provide thecontent for the Archives Gateway and services and provideonsite and outreach services;• collections are appropriately preserved and conserved sothat users now and in the future can understand their ownhistory and identity.1234Modernisation is the key to creating the capacity that willbe needed to ensure that:The Task Force’s seventh recommendation thereforeproposes a programme of work that will address the mostsignificant concerns. Building on work by national archiveinstitutions and agencies, archive agencies in the homenations and in England, Regional Agencies for museums,libraries and archives and Regional Archive Councils, weare confident that this will lay the foundations for longtermimprovement and transformation within all archives.Four action lines have been identified that should form thebasis of a modernisation programme over the next threeyears:Creation of Centres of Expertise to share skills and advice;Quality assurance and continuous improvementin stewardship;Encouraging volunteering;Developing the UK archives and records managementworkforce.Centres of ExpertiseMLA is already involved in reviewing the need forprofessional advisory services both nationally acrossEngland and within the nine English regions. Workingthrough national institutions, the Regional Agencies formuseums, libraries and archives and the RegionalMuseum Hubs, options are being considered for advisoryservices to support professional needs. However, it isalready apparent that centres of excellence and expertisecan help significantly to reduce disparities between thelargest and the smallest institutions, the publicly fundedand the voluntary and the lack of technical skills that existin many places. Centres of Expertise can operate ondifferent levels. While most of the Task Force’s debate hasbeen about a regional focus, it is evident that there ispotential for the larger, publicly-funded services to fosterand support their smaller, private and voluntaryneighbours, and informally many already do.The Task Force endorses this approach and proposesthat further research is undertaken to establish themechanisms and funding models that would need to beput in place for such Centres of Expertise to be effective.It has identified a range of roles that might be fulfilledat a different scale of operation:• Conservation: a minority of archives are now able tosustain in-house conservation facilities. There is alsoa skills shortage in trained conservators.• Electronic archiving: there are few services at regional levelable to meet the issues and problems surroundingthe archiving of electronically held records. There is botha skills shortage and a lack of good practice to emulate.• Photographic/micrographic/scanning services: a smallminority of archives have in-house studio facilities formicrofilming, photography and scanning. In most otherarchives this work is either put out to commercial suppliersor is not undertaken at all.• Social inclusion activities: activities are scattered thinly,and are locally generated according to resource availability.• Educational activity: a small minority of services enjoy thebenefit of a post specifically focused on developingeducational work.

Modernisation and Workforce Development• Cataloguing: this has traditionally been the core skillof archivists, the heart of their training yet there has beena lack of capacity to meet the demand.• Training: maximizing opportunities for trainingand continuous professional development through theco-ordination of programmes, mentoring and secondmentsat national level.• Business Development: archives need to be encouraged toexplore the commercial dimensions of their activities.Quality Assurance andContinuous ImprovementWhile the Task Force is committed to advocatinginvestment in the Archives Gateway and the digital contentat its heart, it does not mean that onsite archive servicesand the essential role of stewardship can be neglected.These activities will continue to be vital as there is still aneed to develop access locally and to create more contentfor the Archives Gateway from the vast wealth ofuncatalogued records. More people will be engaged withthe nation’s archives electronically but rising numbers willstill wish to visit archives in person and consult originaldocuments, view films and listen to oral history recordings.Onsite user facilities will continue to be an essentialcomponent of the pattern of provision for the future.A determined effort should be made to raise and maintainstandards in all publicly-funded archives. It is essentialthat every effort is made to improve, and ensure adequateinvestment in, documentation and conservation andpreservation activities. Investment of £8 million a yearby those responsible for archive services over the next fiveto ten years would significantly improve the legacy ofcataloguing needs and protect collections at risk.Put quite simply, improved access depends on acommitment to effective stewardship. Without thesuccessful balancing of access and preservation needsmany unique resources could be lost to future generations.This is particularly true in the preservation of records thatwere ‘born digital’, where new approaches to selection,management and preservation will be required.Tenzing and Hillary on their successful Everest expedition of 1953,images of which are archived by the Royal Geographical SocietyUnlocking Our AchievementsUnlocking the Archives is a £7.2 million project run by theRoyal Geographical Society with the Institute of BritishGeographers (RGS-IBG). Supported by a £5.04 milliongrant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, it aims to preserveand catalogue material in the huge archive holdings ofRGS-IBG, and to create much wider access to them. Theproject also has a strong educational dimension.From summer 2004, Unlocking the Archives will providepublic access to the Society’s heritage collection of books,maps, photographs, documents and artefacts spanning170 years. This collection covers geography andgeographical research, British exploration and a wealthof material relevant to understanding contemporarymulti-cultural Britain. To develop the project’s educationalpotential, a heritage education officer was appointed inJuly 2003.Unlocking the Archives is the first capital project by anon-government funded specialist archive and learnedsociety that combines the retroconversion of a cataloguewith the provision of high-quality storage, public accessand new educational services. The combination of theSociety’s in-house educational and curatorial experience,and the expert knowledge of its 14,000 Fellows, willcreate a unique opportunity to open up its nationallyimportant archive collections.51

Archives ought to befertile ground for theactive involvement ofvolunteers. Users andarchivists share anenthusiasm whichcrosses professionalboundaries.

Modernisation and Workforce DevelopmentRecommendation SevenPut in place a programme to modernise servicemanagement and improve workforce developmentopportunities.Action 1Investigate the establishment of Centres of archivalExpertise within the English Regions to provide support tolocal archives and spread good practice and to collaboratewith the devolved administrations to co-ordinate work inthis area.Action 2Create a quality assurance framework so that nationalstandards for collections care and exploitation areimplemented as widely as possible.Action 3Support innovative, collaborative approaches todeveloping a national strategy to address backlogsin cataloguing.Action 4Undertake further research into the future use ofvolunteers in archival collections through pilot projects.Action 5National agencies across the whole of the UK shouldexplore the feasibility of an integrated training anddevelopment framework.Encouraging VolunteeringActive citizenship has become an increasingly importantmeasure of the health of society in the UK today, and amajor contributor to social capital. To be willing toparticipate in civic activity, informally volunteer to help aneighbour or other citizen, or to give time formally to anorganisation are all seen as positive contributions to thecommon good. Volunteering is a significant part of activecitizenship and has been given high status by thegovernment. Volunteers are active in all areas of life,and all decision makers need to be volunteer-friendlyand also volunteering-literate; that is, aware of ways thattheir actions and decisions may affect community andvoluntary activity.The Task Force has found that volunteers are anunder-used resource in archives and record offices, andhas identified volunteering as an important area fordevelopment across the archives domain. Archivesought to be fertile ground for the active involvement ofvolunteers. Users and archivists share an enthusiasm forthe material which crosses professional boundaries.Many archive organisations are making excellent use ofvolunteers, for example at The National Archives wherevolunteers help with events and cataloguing. The internethas made an exponential difference to the capacity ofvolunteers to contribute on the family history front.Volunteers are active in The Federation of Family HistorySocieties and local Family History Societies which lead theway in the archives sector in this field. It is our belief thatif archive services are appropriately accommodated andresourced, volunteers can be a wholly positive resource.A Willingness To EngageLancashire Record Office is the base for a group of morethan 30 regular volunteers known as the Will Flatteners,who have been working for more than 15 years on aproject to make Lancashire’s wills more accessible. By theend of 2004, when the project is due to be completed,they will have worked their way through 1,557 boxes ofwills, carefully unrolling the documents, putting them intonew labelled folders.Since 1988 the record office has been running the ProbateConservation Programme on wills proved between thefifteenth and nineteenth centuries at the Chester andRichmond Archdeaconry Courts. Many fascinating willsand inventories have been uncovered, and have been usedin exhibitions and researched for articles. An importantaspect of the project was the creation of new indexes tosome of the wills by a team at the University of CentralLancashire in Preston.County Archivist Bruce Jackson explains how the projectbegan as a conservation exercise but has “far exceeded ourexpectations.” He says that, “The benefits have been53

54Volunteers known as Will Flatteners use their time and skills to makearchived wills more accessible to the public through practical storage.Photo: Lancashire County Council Corporate CommunicationsWithin England, MLA has led the creation of a workforcedevelopment strategy for the museums, libraries andarchives sector and this will provide a mechanism forincreased partnership working. The creation of one ormore Sector Skills Councils that will include the needs ofthe archives workforce should also provide additionalapproaches to training and development. Recent researchhas indicated that there is a market for a course inScotland from both potential students and employers.As a result, a new archive course will be launched laterthis year in Scotland. There is currently no archive coursein Northern Ireland.enormous, cutting production times for these documents,finding strays, creating more comprehensive and accurateindexes and preparing the records for microfilming.A huge thank you is due to our volunteers.”Developing the WorkforceThe UK is fortunate to have an advanced professionalarchives domain which is respected and admiredworldwide. However it is clear from the evidence collectedduring our consultation that there are many concernsabout recruitment and retention of staff and developing anappropriate workforce in the future. These concerns arereflected in the research about workforce in the heritagesector and the archives domain, notably the Joint NationalCouncil on Archives/MLA Archives Workforce Study 7 .There can be very little doubt that the creation of a welleducated, diverse, strongly motivated and appropriatelytrained workforce at all levels is essential to theimplementation and achievement of the recommendationsin this report.The need for a training infrastructure for the archives andrecords management workforce is UK-wide althoughcurrent courses exist only in England and Wales. Thedemographics of the future workforce indicate that newpeople, new patterns of working and new ways of trainingand development will be required.Supporting Staff in the WorkplaceWorking together with library colleagues, LincolnshireHeritage Services has implemented a staff trainingprogramme that enables staff to develop in their currentpositions and to move on to higher posts within andoutside the county council. The scheme has been effectivein helping junior staff to gain higher-grade posts in thearchive and museum sectors.The programme includes heritage NVQs and managementtraining at various levels. Formal training is provided in thecontext of a development plan for each individual.Lincolnshire’s NVQ centre (co-ordinated from the countyarchives) is now supported by the East Midlands Hub, anda centre administrator will be appointed to enable it tomove forward at a regional level.Says Stephanie Gilluly, Area Service Manager, Archivesand Conservation, “Whilst valuing the training offered onuniversity courses, we recognise that not everyone hasaccess to university or college-based professionalqualifications. By focusing on staff development and bybasing training in the workplace, we get the benefit ofpeople’s increasing skills, and they have the chance of realcareer progression.” The scheme has the potential toprovide training across the domains, enriching theworkplace experience of staff and enabling more peopleto pursue museum, archive and library careers.

Modernisation and Workforce DevelopmentLincolnshire Heritage Services staff event at Church Farm Museum,collecting memories and copying community photographsThe responsibility for creating and delivering a workforcetraining and development strategy must rest with alldomain stakeholders – employers, higher educationtraining providers and funders, professional bodies andorganisations, and commercial trainers – and must have auser focus. The Task Force recommends that a programmeis established to modernise service management andimprove workforce development opportunities. To supportwork in this area, the Task Force has drafted a TrainingFramework designed to address three key needs: theshortage of applicants with appropriate skills for jobs inarchives and records management; the recognition thatthere is a growing mismatch between the skills requiredand the skills that can be taught by the university archivesschools in the confines of a one-year masters or diplomaprogramme; and the changing skills needed to dealeffectively with documentation and records management.The framework below offers a stratified level approachwhich would permit professional progress.5. Established in 1987, the Film Archive Forum represents all of thepublic sector film and television archives which care for the UK’s movingimage heritage. Hidden Treasures: the UK Audiovisual Archive StrategicFramework will be published in March 20046. Our shared past: An Archival Domesday and Our Shared Past:Developing 21st Century Archive Services (Phases One and Two of amapping survey of English local authority archives), Archival MappingProject Board (Public Record Office), 1997–2001The Archival Mapping Project for Wales (Mapping Surveys of Welsh LocalAuthority Archives Services), Welsh Archival Mapping Project Board,1996–2000An Archival Account of Scotland (A mapping survey of Scottish archives)Archive Services in Scotland Mapping Project Board, 2000The Missing Link (A survey of specialist archive repositories in England)Missing Link Project Board/Society of Archivist, 2002Surveys of Visitors to British Archives, Public Services Quality Group,1998, 1999, 2001, 2002Archives at the Millennium, The Twenty-eighth report of the RoyalCommission on Historical Manuscripts 1991–1999, HistoricalManuscripts Commission, 19997. This study was funded by MLA and conducted by the National Councilon Archives and the University of Sheffield. The aim of the studyis to provide the archives domain with information about key workforceissues and make recommendations for improvements. It is publishedonline as Annex G to the Archives Task Force report. www.mla.gov.uk55• Level A is training designed for and directed at unqualifiedassistants and other clerical members of staff.• Level B encompasses training for those recruits toundergraduate course.• Level C provision at the initial postgraduate level as atpresent, but with the expectation that more flexible modesof study will continue to emerge (such as distance andopen learning and schemes permitting a greater degreeof specialisation).• Level D training is a programme to support continuousprofessional development leading to higher qualification.• Level E training for strategic managers in the sectorprobably leading to a doctoral qualification.The UK is fortunateto have an advancedprofessional archivesdomain which isrespected andadmired worldwide.

Funding, Recommendations, Next Steps56‘ Partnership and co-ordination are the way forward – they are thekeys to creating strong, successful services.’Respondent to the Archives Task Force

6Next Steps for Action and DeliveryOur urgent task isto enable archives todeliver value to allcitizens in ways thatwill enrich their lives.58 We have covered a broad landscape of actions in thisreport to present significant challenges to all those workingin archives and records management, funding bodies andkey stakeholders across the whole of the UK. While thearchives domain has a long and honourable history as anengine of discovery and research we made clear at thebeginning that our urgent task is to enable the domain todeliver value to all citizens in ways that will enrich theirlives and help them to understand better the communityof which they are a part.To give credibility to the arguments and proposalsthat have been made it is vital not merely to recommendbroad areas for possible action, but to indicate how therecommendations and actions might be given momentumtowards delivery. Such momentum invariably depends ontwo factors – co-ordination and funding. At the start of thisreport emphasis was placed on the real benefit of beingable to take a UK-wide view of the future roles andpriorities for archival collections, not least because thevalue of archival collections and the use made of themtranscends boundaries. The commitment of all fourhome nations to work towards developing the strategiesoutlined in this report lends significant weight to therecommendations that have been made. Moving fromUK strategy to UK implementation brings new challenges.Within the public domain archival policy and fundingare both devolved functions. There is no doubt that therehas been support from each of the home nations toparticipate in the work of the Task Force. However, wemust recognise that there will need to be significantemphasis on on-going consultation between all interestedparties: funding departments in the four countries andstrategic partners. Moreover, where UK-wide programmesare planned, it will be necessary to build fundingportfolios supplied from a range of sources. All of theserequirements place emphasis on formalising as soon aspossible what has been successful, as well as developinginformal mechanisms of co-operation, collaborationand communication.The Inter-Departmental Archives Committee 8 (whichproduced the Government Policy on Archives and itsAction Plan) embraces the national archive services of all

60 four countries. Through MLA, a Home Countries Forumhas been set up under the auspices of the fourdepartments responsible for culture in the home nations.Given that these groups are already meeting, it should notbe necessary to look further to find ways of ensuring thatinformal co-operation extends to formal agreements on theallocation of funding that will be required to enable anumber of the recommendations in this report. The TaskForce therefore proposes as a final recommendation:Recommendation EightAgreement should be sought from the four home nationsof the UK on the forum that will co-ordinate thedevelopment of the recommendations on this report.Our strategy for funding calls for investment over threeyears to deliver the Gateway. The proposed ArchiveDevelopment Programme will look at other areas ofdevelopment and other sources of investment. The strategywill highlight ways in which archives are assisting broadergovernment agendas and will focus on the need forsustainable funding commitments. There are some areasof development, modernisation and capacity buildingwhere external funding beyond the Archives DevelopmentProgramme may be achievable, for example, Lotterysupport for volunteering programmes, and these should bepursued through the UK-wide forum.guide future local, regional and national investment inarchives to unlock our shared archival heritage to allcitizens in a way that engages them and empowers themto use archives for personal, community, social andeconomic benefit.8. The Inter-Departmental Archives Commitee is chaired by the ChiefExecutive of The National Archives, and brings together representativesof national archive services, the home nations, central governmentdepartments and key archive stakeholders.Our strategy mustbe seen as the firststep of a long-termprogramme to guidefuture investmentin archives.There have been a number of key developments inarchives while the Task Force has been sitting.Government proposals for regional assemblies andre-organisation of regional government will present freshchallenges and opportunities. In England, The NationalArchives has been charged with developing proposals fornew archival legislation that could make a great differencelocally, regionally and nationally in tackling a number ofthe issues we have identified.We summarise briefly in the following tables therecommendations and actions that have been detailed inthe report. We give indications of levels of expenditureacross three years, but these will obviously depend onpriorities for action yet to be agreed between theadministrations of the four home nations. Our strategymust be seen as the first step of a long-term programme to

Next Steps for Action and DeliveryPreliminary Budget –Projects 2004–07Recommendation OneCreate an Archive Gateway which will give everyone the opportunity toparticipate in the archival heritage (see also Appendix B: Archive networkingdevelopments to date).61•••Action 1The creation of technical infrastructure within archives.Connecting publicly-funded archives to the Internet through broadbandInformation and communications technology training for archive workersAgree technical standards for the GatewayManagementMLA/The National Archives to lead jointly the programme throughthe Archive ForumFunding SourcesLottery; joint working with the Common InformationEnvironment Group£3,800,000Action 2Market studies to establish priorities for user demand and identifypotential partners.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum, National Council on ArchivesFunding SourcesLottery; Archive Development Programme£200,000Action 3Programmes to digitise archival documents focused on popular themesand topics.ManagementMembers of the Archive ForumFunding SourcesLottery; joint working with Common InformationEnvironment Group£3,000,000Action 4Programmes to signpost significant collections through collectionlevel description.ManagementMembers of the Archive ForumFunding SourcesLottery£1,000,000

62 Action 5New services for the archival user, for example, packages to support particularcommunities of interest (children, students, tourists and businesses).ManagementMembers of the Archive ForumFunding SourcesLottery; Dept. for Education & Skills£2,000,000Total Recommendation One£10,000,000Recommendation TwoPosition UK archives as key contributors to local, regional and national socialand economic objectives.Action 1Create a UK Archives Strategic Marketing Plan as the means of co-ordinatingthe promotion of archives and developing audiences.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on ArchivesFunding SourcesArchives Development Programme£100,000Action 2Co-ordinate a programme of evidence gathering on archives and theircontribution to local, regional and national, social and economic objectives(to be used as part of the wider advocacy campaign for archives).ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Regional Agencies for museums, libraries and archivesFunding SourcesArchives Development Programme£50,000Action 3Develop a programme of advocacy to promote the value of archives in supportof the social and learning agendas and to develop professional awareness.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Regional Agencies for museums, libraries and archivesFunding SourcesArchives Development Programme£100,000

Next Steps for Action and DeliveryAction 4Establish a Business Development Group for innovation and partnership toassist archives to maximize commercial opportunities.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Regional Agencies for museums, libraries and archivesFunding SourcesArchives Development Programme£10,00063Total Recommendation Two£260,000Recommendation ThreeRelease the potential of archives to enrich and enhance teaching and learningand contribute to raising standards in education.Action 1Work with stakeholders to develop programmes that will raise awarenessof the value of ‘hands on’ experience of the archival heritage. Engage teachersin the processes of interpretation to maintain and develop specialistsubject knowledge.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Dept. for Education & Skills; Dept for Culture, Media and SportFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Dept. for Education & Skills £150,000Action 2Develop learning resources for formal education.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Dept. for Education & SkillsFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Dept. for Education & Skills£150,000Total Recommendation Three£300,000

64 Recommendation FourIncrease community participation in UK archive activities with particularfocus on engaging hard-to-reach communities.Action 1Investigate the establishment of, and pilot Community Archive Liaison Officersto support the development of community archives and foster links betweenexisting archives and record offices and the wider community.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Regional Agencies for museums, libraries and archivesFunding SourcesArchives Development Programme£300,000Total Recommendation Four£300,000Recommendation FiveEncourage business, private and specialist archives to develop as integratedcomponent parts of our heritage.Action 1Develop national strategies for business, private and specialist archives.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives; Business ArchiveCouncil; Business Archive Council (Scotland); Film Archive ForumFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; private sponsorship£50,000Action 2Support the creation of learning tools helping bridge the gap between formaleducation and the business world.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; Dept. for Education& Skills; Business Archive Council; Business Archive Council (Scotland)Funding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Dept. for Education& Skills; private sponsorship£200,000

Next Steps for Action and DeliveryAction 3Investigate financial and/or tax incentives to support private institutionalarchives that are made available for public study.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; Dept. for Education& Skills; Business Archive Council; Business Archive Council (Scotland)Funding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Dept. for Education& Skills; Private sponsorship£20,00065Action 4Create mechanisms for rapid response to threats to collections at risk.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives; Dept. forEducation & Skills; Business Archive Council; Business Archive Council(Scotland)Funding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Dept. for Education& Skills; private sponsorship£20,000Action 5Create environments to bring together businesses, private owners and specialistarchives to support preservation and development of such collections .ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Councilon Archives; business, private and specialist archivesFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme£10,000Total Recommendation Five£300,000Recommendation SixEncourage the creation and sustainability of moving image, sound,photographic and digital archives through support for relevant strategies.Action 1Support the implementation of the UK Audiovisual Archives Strategy that hasbeen developed by the Audiovisual Archive Strategy Steering GroupManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Film Archive Forum, Film CouncilFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; private sponsorship£50,000

66 Action 2Encourage regional partnership strategies for the sustainable managementand preservation of digital records.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives; RegionalAgencies for museums, libraries and archives; Digital Preservation CoalitionFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; private sponsorship£50,000Total Recommendation Six£100,000Recommendation SevenPut in place a programme to modernise service management and improveworkforce development opportunities.Action 1Investigate the establishment of Centres of Expertise for archives within theEnglish Regions to provide support to local archives and spread good practiceand to collaborate with the devolved administrations to co-ordinate workin this area.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; Regional Agencies for museums, librariesand archivesFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme£200,000Action 2Create a quality assurance framework so that national standards for collectionscare and exploitation are implemented as widely as possible.ManagementMembers of the Archive ForumFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme£50,000Action 3Support innovative, collaborative approaches to developing a nationalstrategy to address backlogs.in cataloguingManagementMembers of the Archive ForumFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme£50,000

Next Steps for Action and DeliveryAction 4Undertake further research into the future use of volunteers in archivalcollections through pilot projects.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; National Council on Archives;Regional Agencies for museums, libraries and archivesFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Lottery£300,00067Action 5National agencies across the whole of the UK should explore the feasibilityof an integrated training and development framework.ManagementMembers of the Archive Forum; Sector Skills CouncilsFunding SourcesArchive Development Programme; Dept. for Education & Skills £100,000Total Recommendation Seven£700,000Recommendation EightAgreement should be sought from the four home nations of the UK on theforum that will co-ordinate the development of the recommendations onthis report.ManagementAll relevant partners and organisations within the UKFunding SourcesAs appropriate£N/AArchives havesomething foreveryone and webelieve our primaryduty is to presentthe means to helpeveryone … tobenefit from thisknowledge.

Appendices68‘ An archival heritage unlocked and made open to all citizens in a waythat engages them and empowers them to use archives for personal,community, social and economic benefit.’ A Vision for the UK’s Archives

AArchives in 200470 The Breadth and Diversityof UK Archives“Archives are the documents created in the normal courseof the life of an institution or individual in order for them tofunction, and as such provide an historical record.” 9In the last fifty years there has been a significant expansionin the amount of archival material held in the UK. Inparallel, there has been a continuing increase in thenumber of people using archival collections, fuelled inlarge measure by the growth of interest in family and localhistory. In the UK, there are over one and a half millionvisits each year to archives, and over 75% of those visitorsdo so for private or personal research. Many are first timevisitors, and many more millions access archives virtually.The use of archival material has never been more popular.The sheer range and diversity of UK archive collectionsis astonishing. The Archives Task Force has found that,put quite simply, archives are everywhere.Archive Facts and FiguresPeople• 853,742 people visiting local authority archives inEngland and Wales in 2001/02• Over 300,000 people visited the sites of The NationalArchives in 2002/03• Over 12,500 people visited the search rooms of theNational Archives of Scotland in 2002/03• Over 15,000 people visited the search rooms of thePublic Record Office of Northern Ireland in 2002/03• 195 groups (4,309 teachers, pupils and students)participating in educational workshops on-site or viavideoconferencing at The National Archives• Nearly 58% of archive users are aged 55 and above• 5% of archive users are aged below 24• An estimated 98% of archive users are white• Over 1,830 members of the Society of Archivists(total membership)• Over 650 members of the Records Management Society

Archives in 2004PlacesMotivation71•••MLA estimates that there are 2,150 archives acrossthe UKOver 500 people employed by The National Archives1,249 people employed in local authority archives inEngland and Wales as at March 200215.5 archive education officers employed in local authorityarchives in England and Wales•Participation• There are over 200 Community Archive Groupsin the UK commanet community archives network• There are 387,000 members of the Federationof Family History Societies and the Scottish Associationof Family History Societies• There are approximately 420,000 members of LocalHistory Societies• There are an estimated 2.1 million readers of historyperiodicals• There were 559 history programmes broadcast by theBBC in 2002, and 3 million viewers is the average viewingaudience for history programmes on BBC1 and BBC2• OfTel estimates that 12.5 million UK homes are nowconnected to the internetOnline demand• 85 million information requests handled by The NationalArchives websites 2002/03 www.nationalarchives.gov.uk• 2.85 million searches and 5.95 million cataloguedownloads since the launch of the Access to Archives(A2A) programme in 2001 www.a2a.org.uk• 700,000 visitors to the www.scottishdocuments.comwebsite 2002/03• 100,000 visitors per week to the BBC History websitewww.bbc.co.uk/history/• 18,000 visitors per month to the website of the PublicRecord Office of Northern Ireland• 63% of archive users’ main reason for visiting archivesis for personal leisure/recreation• 11% of archive users’ main reason for visiting archivesis for non-leisure personal or family business• 16% of archive users’ main reason for visiting archivesis for formal education purposes• 10% of archive users’ main reason for visiting archivesis for work in connection with their employmentFunding• £160 million awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund to“Documentary Heritage” projects 1994–2003, including:– £10 million for new record offices in Surrey, Norfolkand Devon– £5.3 million to save and digitise newspaper holdingsthrough NEWSPLAN– £3 million to the Scottish Archive Network– £2.5 million to support Access to Archives in England– £350,000 to the online Archive Network Wales• £16 million on average awarded annually by the HeritageLottery Fund to “Documentary Heritage” projects from1994–2003• £43.4 million total recorded expenditure of local authorityarchives in England 2002/03• £38.3 million gross expenditure of The National Archivesin 2002/03• £10.3 million gross expenditure of the National Archivesof Scotland 2002/03• £8 million awarded to Regional Agencies for museums,libraries and archives by MLA in 2003/04• £3.9 million total recorded expenditure of local authorityarchives in Wales 2002/03• £3.3 million total expenditure of the Public Record Officeof Northern Ireland 2002/039. British Archives, A Guide to Archive Resources in the United Kingdom,Foster & Sheppard, 4th edition Palgrave, 2002

72 Examples of Archive TypesAcross the UKSome examples of each type of archive are included here.National archivesThe National Archives, The National Archives of Scotland,the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.Records heldPublic records of government departments agenciesand bodies; private and semi-private collections of publicfigures and officials; significant map, plan and photographcollections; official printed material (The National Archivesof Scotland and the Public Record Office of NorthernIreland also hold private and business collections).National institutionsThe British Library, The British Library Sound Archive,The BBC, The Parliamentary Archives, The National Filmand Television Archive.Records heldManuscripts, files, maps, plans, prints, photographsprinted material, departmental files, oral historycollections, digital records, audiovisual archives createdor received by the institution.Central government departments, agenciesand bodiesHome Office, Ordnance Survey, UK Hydrographic Office.Records heldCurrent and semi-current records created or receivedin the conduct of official business. e.g. departmental filesand digital records, electronic datasets, printed material,maps, plans, photographs. Archives retained foradministrative use.Local authority run archives, local historyand local studies servicesLondon Metropolitan Archives, Gloucestershire CountyRecord Office, Sheffield Archives, West Sussex RecordOffice, Islington Archives, Glasgow City Archives,Glamorgan Record Office.Records heldOfficial, unofficial private and business records relatingto a particular geographical location: e.g. local governmentand related records; public records; ecclesiastical records;legal records (e.g. quarter sessions); estate, family andmanorial records, business records (e.g. solicitors, estateand land agents, architects, retailers, publicans records);industrial and manufacturing records; records of voluntaryorganisations, clubs, societies and charities, antiquarianand manuscript collections.National/regional museums and galleriesNational Gallery, Natural History Museum, Imperial WarMuseum, National Railway Museum, York, AshmoleanMuseum, Oxford.Records heldManuscripts, maps, plans, prints, photographs, printedmaterial, departmental records, audiovisual archivesrelating to particular collections.Higher Education sectorCambridge University, Durham University, North LondonUniversity, Queen’s University Belfast, University ofDundee, University of Wales, Swansea colleges of furthereducation, schools.Records heldRecords, archives and manuscripts acquired or donatedto the holding institution e.g. private papers, printedmaterial manuscripts, deposited public records, maps,plans, prints, sound recordings, audiovisual archives,digital records.

Archives in 2004Audiovisual archivesArchive Users – Age Profile73North West Film Archive, Media Archive of CentralEngland, National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales,Scottish Screen Archives.Records heldMoving image and sound archives relating to aparticular region or geographical location, posters,prints and ephemera.Specialist repositoriesNational Survey of Visitors to British Archives 150Percentage of usersCharities, historic houses, hospitals, Medical/scientificorganisations, professional bodies/learned institutions,religious institutions.Records heldHoldings extremely rich and varied e.g. CanterburyCathedral Archives: records of Dean and chapter ofCanterbury, parish records, Royal College of Surgeons:papers of surgeons and the history of surgery, OxfordshireHealth Archives: National Health Service records,paintings, prints, History of Advertising Trust: poster,campaign and business records, NSPCC (National Societyfor the Prevention of Cruelty to Children): charity records.Business archivesBT, Marks & Spencer, Rothschilds, Harrods, Unilever,Barclays, The Guardian, AstraZeneca.Records heldCompany trading and historical records. Holdingsextremely rich and varied, including manuscript materialfiles, correspondence, maps, plans, drawings, artwork,moving images, sound, photographs, digital recordsand objects and artefacts.0■ Under 16■ 16–24■ 25–44■ 45–59■ 60+1998199920011. Since 1998, the Public Services Quality Group has organised andco-ordinated the National Survey of Visitors to British Archives.134 archive services across the UK took part in 2002 and 11,899 surveyforms were returned. Each survey has used a core of similar questionsdesigned to understand the profile of archive users and gauge their viewson the services provided.

74 Trends in Archive Visitor Numbers1997–2002Archive Usersat The National Archives, the National Archives ofScotland and the Public Record Office of Northern IrelandVisitors (000)875850825Visitors (000)1408001207751007508072560700406752065001997/981998/991999/20002000/012001/021998/991999/20002000/012001/02Number of readers (visitors)■ Public Record Office of Norhern Ireland■ The National Archives■ National Archives of Scotland

Archives in 2004Diversity of UK ArchivesDATA SOURCES7519%1%5%4%13%20%14%6%18%1. Annual Report and Accounts of the Society of Archivists, 2003,Society of Archivists, 20042. Annual Report of the Keeper of the Records of Scotland 2002/03,The National Archives of Scotland, 20023. Annual Report of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland 2002/03,The Stationery Office, 20034. Archive Statistics and Estimates 2002/03, Chartered Instituteof Public Finance and Accountancy, 20025. Archives Task Force Evidence Commission, evidence supplied by:The Heritage Lottery FundThe Records Management Society of Great Britain6. Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy Archive Statisticsand Estimates: Commentary 2002/03, Jackson B and Pick G, PublicServices Quality Group, 20037. History meets the Future: Annual report of the National Archives,2002–2003, The Stationery Office, 20038. National Survey of Visitors to British Archives, Public Services QualityGroup, 20029. The Secondary Impact of Archives, Kenyon, J, MLA, 200310. Websites:Access to archives: www.a2a.org.ukCommanet: www.commanet.org.ukNational Archives (Historical Manuscripts Commission), ARCHON:www.hmc.gov.uk/archonPublic Services Quality Group: www.pro.gov.uk/archives/psqg■ Local authority 1■ University, education■ Religious■ Museum and gallery■ Charity and charitable■ Business and company■ Medical, private and independent■ Moving image and sound■ Community archives1. Local authority archives make up 14% of archives by numberof institutions, but hold a greater number of collections and employ thelargest number of archivists of any sector.

BArchive Networking Achievements to Date76a2aThe Access to Archives programme, co-ordinated byThe National Archives. The database now contains morethan 6 million catalogue entries describing archives heldin 340 record offices, libraries and other repositoriesthroughout England.www.a2a.org.ukThe Guardian NewsroomArchives HubA national gateway to descriptions of archives in UKuniversities and colleges, funded by the Joint InformationSystems Committee.www.archiveshub.ac.ukArchives Network WalesA project to create a web resource to allow easy searchingof the collections of documents held by record offices,universities, museums and libraries in Wales, co-ordinatedby the Archives Council Wales and the National Libraryof Wales, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund.www.archivesnetworkwales.info/anwARCHONARCHON is an online information gateway for archivists inthe UK and users of manuscript sources for British history.It is hosted and maintained by The National Archives(HMC). The ARCHON Directory includes contact detailsfor record repositories in the United Kingdom and also forinstitutions elsewhere in the world which have substantialcollections of manuscripts noted under the indexes to theNational Register of Archives. The ARCHON Portal is areference point for information about archival resourcesand projects that are planned, ongoing or completed.A wide range of initiatives are covered such as the nationalarchive network, online finding aids, standards for archivalcare and description, preservation and conservation andsurveying and mapping collections.www.hmc.gov.uk/archon/archonCommanetCommunity archives are collections of still and videoimages, text and oral narratives that have been capturedusing specially developed comma software and basic ITequipment. They are fully searchable databases thatserve as a record of communities’ cultural heritage and

Archive Networking Achievements to Dateare published as local CD-ROMs and on the internet.Commanet is a charity that promotes and supportscommunity archives through advice and training, sellsthe comma software, promotes community archiveson its website and co-ordinates projects across the UKand worldwide.www.commanet.org.ukCulture OnlineCulture Online is an initiative to increase access to, andparticipation in, arts and culture. It brings together culturalorganisations with cutting-edge technical providers tocreate projects that will delight adults and children of allages and backgrounds. Examples of Culture Onlineprojects involving archival resource include Stagework,which brings together information about UK performingarts collections and institutions and Headline History,a series of virtual newspapers from specific periods inhistory, from the Roman Gazette to the Victorian Times,to match areas of the National Curriculum.www.cultureonline.gov.ukeCATNIThe Public Record Office of Northern Ireland ElectronicCatalogue for Northern Ireland Project, funded from theService Modernisation budget of the Northern IrelandExecutive Programme Fund. The project aims to create acomprehensive and accurate set of electronic informationavailable to the public, on-site and via the Internet.Enrich UKThe gateway to a lottery-funded collection of 150 sitessupported by the New Opportunities Fund. The collectionranges across culture, history, social and economicdevelopment, science and art as well as offering regionaland national ‘sense of place’ websites from England,Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.www.enrichuk.netHEIRNETThe Historic environment Information Resources networkwas formed by a group of organisations with an interest ininformation relating to archaeology and the historicenvironment. HEIRNET enables access to HistoricEnvironment Information Resources for conservation,research, learning and general interest.www.britarch.ac.uk/HEIRNET/index.htmlLearning CurveThe National Archives’ Learning Curve is an onlineteaching resource, structured to tie in with the HistoryNational Curriculum from Key Stages 2 to 5. The LearningCurve contains a varied range of original sources includingdocuments, photographs, and film and sound recordings.www.learningcurve.pro.gov.ukLinking ArmsThe pan-archives Linking Arms Initiative (co-ordinatedby The National Archives and the National Council onArchives) has three components: technical, to enableinteroperability between all strands of the UK on-linearchives and websites established by community groups;community based, developing links with communitygroups of all kinds, and content based as indicated by userand impact studies. Linking Arms will bring togetherofficial and unofficial archives, private and communityarchives, including for example videos, digital and soundrecording and film footage. It will also invite people tocontribute their own history – or that of their family orcommunity – to that ever-growing documentary heritageof our lives and to the ever-evolving national archive.Additionally, access to digitized documents will enablepeople to search, find and keep documents of theirown heritage.NDADThe National Digital archive of Datasets is part ofThe National Archives and is based at the University ofLondon Computing Centre. It preserves and providesonline access to archived digital data and documents fromUK central government departments.www.ndad.ulcc.ac.ukNRAThe National Register of Archives. These electronicindexes, maintained by The National Archives, givesummary descriptions of the major archives in the UK andelsewhere known to be of importance to British history(excluding records of government).www.hmc.gov.uk/nra77

78 People’s NetworkThe People’s Network is a project which has connected allpublic libraries to the internet, as part of the government’scommitment to give everyone in the UK the opportunityto get online. Lottery-funded by the New OpportunitiesFund and managed by The Council for Museums, Librariesand Archives, more than 4,000 library centres have beencreated through the initiative. The Project included a£50 million Digitisation of Learning Materials Programme(also known as the NOF-digitise programme).www.peoplesnetwork.gov.ukExamples of NOF-digitise projects involving archives:Port CitiesA partnership of websites giving access to the collectionscontributed by heritage organisation in five key maritimecities around the UK – Bristol, Hartlepool, Liverpool,London and Southampton archives.www.portcities.org.ukMoving HereA database of digitised photographs, maps, objects,documents and audio items from 30 local and nationalarchives, museums and libraries which record migrationexperiences of the last 200 years. Its partners include TheNational Archives, the New Opportunities Fund and theNational Grid for Learning.www.movinghere.org.ukPROCATThe National Archives on-line catalogue of the archivesof central government, courts of law and other nationalbodies. Contains over 9 million searchable items.www.pro.gov.uk/cataloguesResearch Support Libraries ProgrammeA national initiative (1999–2002), funded by the fourhigher education funding bodies, to bring together bothtraditional and new forms of access to archive and libraryinformation.www.rslp.ac.ukExamples of projects involving significant archival materialinclude:A Mine of Information: cataloguing theSouth Wales coalfieldA cross-sectoral project managed by the Universityof Wales Swansea to improve access to research resourcesrelating to the South Wales Coalfield by creating onlinecatalogue records for archives and printed books.www.mineofinfo.ac.ukAim25An online networking project, between institutionsbordered by the M25.www.aim25.ac.ukCASBAHIdentifying and mapping research resources forCaribbean Studies and the history of Black and Asianpeople in Britain.www.casbah.ac.ukCharles Booth Online ArchiveFree desk-top access to guides, digitised images andmaps from the Booth archive collections at the LondonSchool of Economics and Political Science and theUniversity of London Library.www.lse.ac.uk/boothCharting The NationWidening access to maps of Scotland and associatedarchives (1590–1740) – a collaborative digital imagingand cataloguing project to provide on-line access to mapsof Scotland and their associated archives dating from1550–1740.www.images.lib.ed.ac.uk/chartingthenationGASHE: the gateway to archivesof Scottish higher educationAn integrated gateway to Higher Education Institutions’records, unlocking outstanding collections of archivesand related materials in differing media, covering a vastchronological breadth and across a diverse rangeof institutions.www.gashe.ac.uk

Archive Networking Achievements to DateGenesis: developing access to women’shistory sources in the British IslesA mapping initiative, based at The Women’s Library inLondon, to identify and develop access to women’s historysources in the British Isles.www.genesis.ac.ukMapping Research Resources in WalesA database of research level collections housed inWelsh higher education institutions, the National Libraryof Wales, and special and local collections.www.mappingwales.ac.ukOASISOnline access to the index of archaeological investigationsBased at the University of York.www.ads.ahds.ac.ukPapers of Twentieth Century British ScientistsCo-ordinated through the National Cataloguing Unit for theArchives of Contemporary Scientists to catalogue thearchives of five British scientists of exceptional importance.www.bath.ac.uk/ncuacs/rslpRASCALResearch and special collections available locallyin Northern Ireland.www.rascal.ac.ukResearcher’s Guide OnlineDeveloped by the British Universities Film & VideoCouncil, this online resource has entries on over 550 film,television, radio and related documentation collectionsin the UK and Ireland. It features national and regionalarchives as well as libraries and collections held by localauthorities, museums, institutions of further and highereducation, industrial companies and private individuals.www.bufvc.ac.ukThe Drawn EvidenceScotland’s development through its architectural archivesfrom industrialisation to the millennium 1780–2000.Based at the University of Dundee.www.drawnevidence.ac.ukYorkshire Quaker HeritageA project to survey and map Quaker archives and bookcollections held by archives and libraries in Yorkshire.www.hull.ac.uk/lib/archives/quakerSCANScottish Archive Network is a collaborative programmefor online access to catalogues of archives in Scotland.Its partners are the National Archives of Scotland,the Heritage Lottery Fund, and the Genealogical Societyof Utah. The project aims to revolutionise accessto Scotland’s archives by providing a single electroniccatalogue to the holdings of more than 50 Scottisharchives. To preserve fragile historical records and improvetheir accessibility the project digitises records on ahuge scale.www.scan.org.ukwww.scottishhandwriting.comwww.scottishdocuments.comSCRANScottish Cultural Resources Network is the award winninglearning image website with access to quality images,sounds, movies and learning resources. There are over300,000 images from Scottish museums, galleriesand archives.www.scran.ac.uk79

CAcknowledgements80 This report would not have been possible withoutthe contributions of over 700 people, who gave freelyof their time to share their views on how the UK archiveand records management domains could be developedwith the Archives Task Force. This is one of the mostcomprehensive consultations with the archives andrecords management domains for over 50 years, and theTask Force is grateful to everyone who participated in,and contributed to, the process.Members of the Archives Task ForceMark Wood (Chair)Chair, MLA and Chair, ITN(Task Force Chair from January 2003)Lord Matthew EvansFormer Chairman of Resource(Task Force Chair until December 2002)Victor Gray (Vice-chair)MLA Board member (until January 2003)and Director of the Rothschild ArchiveChris BattChief Executive, MLA(Task Force member from July 2003)Professor David CannadineQueen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Chair of BritishHistory and former Director of the Institute of HistoricalResearchStuart DaviesDirector of Research and Strategic Development, MLALiz ForganChair, Heritage Lottery FundDr Rita GardnerDirector, Royal Geographical Society

AcknowledgementsCllr David HarmerRepresenting the Local Government AssociationNicholas KingsleyCounty Archivist, Gloucestershire Record Office,Chairman, National Council on Archives, and Boardmember, MLA (from January 2004)Dr Chris KitchingSecretary, Historical Manuscripts Commission,The National ArchivesBryony LodgeHead of Museums and Cultural Property Division,Department for Culture, Media and Sport(Task Force member until December 2003)Alan SutherlandHead of MLA and Regional Museums Team, Departmentfor Culture, Media and Sport (Task Force member fromOctober 2003)Sarah Tyacke CBKeeper of Public Records and Chief Executive,The National Archives and Historical ManuscriptsCommissionerArchives Task Force secretariatand support teamShirley DayPolicy Adviser, Archives team, MLA81George MackenzieKeeper of the Archives of Scotland,National Archives of ScotlandJustin Cavernelis-FrostSenior Policy Adviser & Archives Task Force ProjectManager, Archives team, MLADame Stella RimingtonFormer Head of Security Services, non-executive DirectorMarks and Spencer, and BG Group plcProfessor Hywel RobertsFormer Head of the Department of Information andLibrary Studies, University of Wales, AberystwythDr Gerry SlaterChief Executive and Deputy Keeper of the Records, PublicRecord Office of Northern IrelandAnna SouthallFormer Chief Executive, Resource(Task Force member until April 2003)Alex StewartFormer Director, Museums, Archives and Libraries Group,Department for Culture, Media and Sport, (Task Forcemember until February 2003)Emma HalsallPolicy Adviser, Archives team, MLABatool KhanArchives Task Force Co-ordinator, Archives team, MLAEmily MealeyPlacement student, Archives team, MLA(until September 2003)Jo O’DriscollHead of Communications, MLAThe team are particularly grateful to Andrea Cordani,Yvette Burrows, Sue Howley, Dale Langan, Simon Matty,Jane Sarluis, Sue Wilkinson and Emma Wright of MLA,Katie Norgrove of the National Council on Archives, andDavid Hay of BT for their support throughout the project.

82 Contributors andrespondentsADiane AbbottMP for HackneyValerie AdamsPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandNatalie AdamsChurchill Archives CentreLibby AdamsUniversity College London Hospitals NHS TrustTudfil AdamsPowys County LibrariesJudy AitkenHeritage Lottery FundNat AlcockBritish Records AssociationRosy AllanBeamish MuseumLindsay Allason-JonesMuseum of AntiquitiesBrian AlleyneThe George Padmore InstituteJane AlveyEast Anglian Film ArchivePeter AndersonNational Archives of ScotlandSue AndrewsHadleigh Castle ArchiveJohn d’ArcyWiltshire & Swindon Record OfficeHelen ArkwrightNewcastle University LibraryAnne ArmitageAmerican Museum in BritainAmanda ArrowsmithConsultantRhona ArthurScottish Library and Information CouncilLawrence AspdenCurator of Special Collections and LibraryArchives, University of SheffieldMelanie AspeyBusiness Archives Council andThe Rothschild ArchiveMalcolm AtkinWorcestershire Archaeology ServiceHilary AtkinsDudley Archives and Local History ServiceSusan AtkinsonHartlepool Borough LibrariesBBruce BaileyHistoric Houses Archivists GroupJo BaileySouth East Museum, Library and ArchiveCouncilSimon BaileyUniversity of OxfordSteven BaileyJoint Information Systems CommitteeKevin BairdHeritage Lottery FundChris BakerNorthumberland Record OfficeFran BakerJohn Rylands LibraryRob BakerArchives in Education Group, Societyof Archivists and The National ArchivesProf. S J K BakerBradford Cathedral Archives and LibraryLinda BankierBerwick upon Tweed Record OfficeAlan BarclayPlymouth & West Devon Record OfficeDr Mike BarfootLothian Health Services ArchiveProf. John BatchelorUniversity of NewcastleClare BaxterAlnwick CastleNeil BeagrieJoint Information Systems Committee andThe Digital Preservation CoalitionRobert BearmanShakespeare Birthplace Trust Records OfficeRhys Bebb JonesNational Library of WalesSusan BeckleyWest Glamorgan Archive Service

AcknowledgementsVictor BelcherSteve BraceAngela Burt83London Archive Users ForumRoyal Geographical SocietyOxford Centre for Vashnava and Hindu StudiesRt Hon Tony BennMonsignor George BradleyDot ButlerPersonal responseThe Diocese of Leeds Pastoral CentreTiverton MuseumChris BennettAlison BramleyClaire ByersCroydon Archives ServiceThe Society of Chief LibrariansCulture One NorthEastElisabeth BennettUniversity of Wales, Swansea, ArchivesNicholas BennetSarah BridgesNorthamptonshire Record OfficeLynne BrindleyCPatrick CadellLincoln CathedralBritish LibraryScottish Local History ForumSimon BennettElaine BrisonRosalind CairdSouth East Museum, Library and ArchiveNational Gas ArchiveHereford CathedralCouncilAlison BerwickNational Council on ArchivesRoger BettridgeCentre for Buckinghamshire StudiesDavid BiggsEnglish PartnershipsSally BirdSociety of Antiquities of NewcastleRobin BlairThe Lord LyonWilliam BlairMid-Antrim Museums ServicePaul BlakeFederation of Family History SocietiesCarl BoardmanOxfordshire Record OfficeElizabeth BoardmanBrasenose & St Hilda’s College andLisa BroadestDoncaster Archives DepartmentKaren BrookfieldHeritage Lottery FundAngela BroomeRoyal Institution of CornwallPaul BroughCornwall County Record Office and South WestRegional Archives CouncilHeather BroughtonLeicestershire County Council, HeritageServicesCynthia BrownEast Midlands Oral History ArchiveJean BrownNorthumbria University ConservationJohn BrownFriends of Dorset ArchivesStephen BruceProf. John CairnsUniversity of Edinburgh and Chairman,Stair Society CouncilFrances CambrookBournemouth University, Oral HistoryResearch UnitAlan CameronBusiness Archives Council of ScotlandBrendan CampbellPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandHugh CampbellPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandSarah CampbellWolverhampton Borough CouncilBrian CarpenterDevon Record OfficeSusan CarragherWest Dunbartonshire LibrariesAlex CaveOxfordshire Health ArchivesScottish Executive, Public Records BranchNorth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesRichard BondManchester Local Studies UnitMike BoneV. BryantWorcestershire Archaeology ServiceSandy BuchananCouncil Logjam ProjectChris ChadwickNorth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesAssociation for Industrial ArchaeologyScottish Cultural Resources Access NetworkCouncilKathleen BoothmanMarcus BuffreyHilary ChambersThe Cheltenham Ladies’ CollegeHerefordshire Record OfficeWarringtonSue BowersJudy BurgGordon ChancellorHeritage Lottery Fund (London Region)Boots plcEast of England Museums, Libraries andNick BoyerStockton Museum ServiceRosemary BoynsSociety of Archivists, WalesRowena BurgessThe Historical AssociationRichard BurmanUniversity of Wales AberystwythArchives CouncilKate ChantrySuffolk Record OfficeAnn ChapmanUKOLN

84 Elizabeth CharltonDCMS Representative, Government Office forthe West MidlandsRobert ChellWest Glamorgan Archive ServiceJenny ChildsOxfordshire Record OfficeRichard ChildsWest Sussex Record OfficeElse ChurchillThe Society of GenealogistsPhillip Clayton-GoreUK Hydrographic OfficeAlan ClothierRobert Stephenson TrustNigel ClubbNational Monuments Record, English HeritageChristine CluleyFriends of Warwickshire Record OfficeSam CollenetteBolton Archives and Local StudiesKim CollisWest Glamorgan Archive ServiceDr F ComptonGeorge Marshall Medical MuseumSteve ConnellyPerth & Kinross Council Archive and Archivistsof Scottish Local Authorities Working GroupPatrick ConwayCultural Services, Durham County CouncilDavid CookeCarmarthenshire Archives ServiceRobert CorbettBelfast City CouncilDr Rachel CosgraveLambeth Palace LibraryCarolynne CottonHillingdon Local Studiesand Archives ServiceYolanda CourtneyLeicester City MuseumsHerbert CouttsThe City of Edinburgh CouncilDr Howard CouttsThe Bowes MuseumMargaret CowellCheshire Record OfficeAlan CoxSurvey of LondonJacky CoxCambridge University ArchivesMike CraigFamily History Society of CheshireTom CraigWiltshire County Council Heritage ServicesLouise CravenThe National ArchivesProf. Claire CrossCentre for Medieval StudiesMaurna CrozierBoard member, Museums, Libraries andArchives CouncilPatsy CullenCommanetChris CumberpatchArchaeologistHeather CumminsLincolnshire County Council Heritage ServicesMary CunninghamOffice of the First Minister and Deputy FirstMinister of Northern IrelandBrian CutlerSussex Family History GroupDDavid DaldrySuffolk Family History SocietyPenny DaleBournemouth UniversityElizabeth DanburySchool of Library, Archive and InformationStudies, University College LondonRobin Darwall-SmithMagdalen College Libraries & ArchivesMargaret DavidsonScottish Archives Network User GroupRobert DavidsonFederation of Family History Societies &Council of Irish Genealogical OrganisationsE A DaviesDyfed Family History SocietyJohn DaviesCarmarthenshire Archives ServiceKaren DaviesLucy Cavendish CollegeSusan DaviesDepartment of Information & Library Studies,University of Wales, AberystwythElizabeth DawsonCharity Archivists and RecordsManagers GroupChris DelaneyCarmathenshire Heritage ServicesJill DixonNorth East Museums Libraries andArchives CouncilStephen DixonMedway Archives and Local Studies CentreRosie DoddOxfamTeresa DohertyThe Wellcome TrustJohn DolanBirmingham Central LibrarySue DonnellyBritish Library of Political & Economic Science,London School of Economics LibraryMark DorringtonStaffordshire & Stoke-on-Trent Archive ServiceGina DouglasLinnean SocietyJoe DowneyPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandWendy DoyleCambridgeshire Family History SocietyJohn DraiseyDevon Record OfficeAlison DrewPortsmouth Museums & Records ServiceMarie DudgeonNorth of England Institute of Mining andMechanical EngineersPeter DurrantBerkshire Record Office

AcknowledgementsEamon DyasBusiness Archives Council andFL E A FairburnGRobin Gard85The Times ArchiveFriends of Berwick Museum & ArchiveHexham & Newcastle R C DioceseClaire DysonCraig FeesJessica GardnerYorkshire Archives CouncilPlanned Environment Trust Therapy ArchiveSpecial Collections Dept, University of ExeterEHugh EdgarCllr FergusonBerwick-upon-Tweed CouncilJoan FergusonNeal GarnhamAcademy of Irish Cultural HeritagesSarah GarrodArchitectScottish Genealogy SocietyThe George Padmore InstituteJohn EdmondsonLesley FergusonHilary GaultLiverpool MuseumNational Monuments Record of ScotlandPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandSusan EdwardsGlamorgan Record Office, and Archive CouncilWalesTim EdwardsHampshire Record OfficeMargaret ElbroThe Historical AssociationJudith ElkinJoyce FinnemoreFederation of Family HistoriansPaddy FitzgeraldCentre for Migration StudiesIain FlemingPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandJane FletcherNorth West Museums, Libraries andAdvisory BoardEleanor GawneRoyal Institute of British ArchitectsDr Stacey GeeGuildhall LibraryKathy GeeMLA-West MidlandsA GeorgeUniversity of Central EnglandArchives CouncilWest Yorkshire Archive Service (Bradford)M EllisIain FlettHelen GibbonsFriends of Hereford Record OfficeDundee City ArchivesShropshire Records & Research CentreMary EllisJohn FlewinAlison GibsonDepartment of Information and LibraryConsultantBowes RailwayStudies, University of Wales, Aberystwyth andAndrew FlinnJennifer GillArchives Council WalesSchool of Library, Archive and InformationDurham County Record OfficeTim EllisScottish Executive Freedom of Information UnitLeo EnticknapNorthern Region Film and TV ArchiveJohn EntwisleReutersGayle EvansNational Museums and Galleries of WalesJean EvansStudies, University College LondonSusan FloodHertfordshire Archives & Local StudiesHeather ForbesCanterbury Cathedral ArchivesKirsty ForbesNational Archives of ScotlandPamela FordCharity Archivists and Records ManagersStephanie GillulyLincolnshire ArchivesKen GlasgowScottish Executive Departmental RecordsDepartmentJocelyn GoddardSouth East Museum, Library andArchive CouncilPam GodmanSuffolk Family History SocietyGroupRochdale Local Studies LibraryKim EvansHelen FordeMary GodwinArts Council EnglandConsultantThe Cable & Wireless Porthcurno & CollectionsMatthew EvansFormer Chairman, ResourceSian EverittBirmingham Institute for Art & DesignFrances FoxStaffordshire Archaeological andHistorical SocietyJen FraserTrustChris GoingNational Association of Air Photo LibrariesCaroline GouldMORIRural History Centre, University of ReadingTerry GourvishBusiness Archive Council

86 Frank GraySouth East Film and Video Archive andThe Archive ForumTodd GrayFriends of Devon Record OfficeEdward GreenBusiness Archives Council and HSBC ArchiveMargaret GreevesThe Fitzwilliam MuseumCllr Adrian GregsonWorcestershire County CouncilJulie GregsonGreater London Archives Network andWandsworth Local History ServiceSteve GrenterWrexham Heritage ServicesJim GrisenthwaiteCumbria County Council and North WestRegional Archives CouncilMichael GuntonArts, Libraries, Museums and Records,Portsmouth City CouncilHelen GwerfylWrexham Centre for Local Studiesand ArchivesHPaul HabbeshonConsultantBrian HaighKirklees Cultural ServicesE A H HaighUniversity of Huddersfield LibraryDr Stuart HalidayUniversity of Sunderland Information ServicesDr John HallUniversity of DurhamJulie HallLondon Borough of Richmond-upon-ThamesKen HallEssex Record Office and East of EnglandRegional Archives CouncilDr Elizabeth Hallam-SmithThe National ArchivesJacqueline HampsonVisitScotlandLouise HampsonYork Minster Library and ArchiveNorma HampsonShakespeare Birthplace Trust Records OfficeDilys HardingNewcastle Libraries & InformationVictoria HardingSouth East Museum, Library and ArchiveCouncilClifford HarknessUlster Folk & Transport MuseumRuth HarmanSheffield City CouncilFelicity HarperPowderham CastlePeter HarperNational Cataloguing Unit for the Archivesof Contemporary Scientists, University of BathDr Frances HarrisThe British LibraryDr Kate HarrisLongleat Historic Collections, Longleat LibraryCarl HarrisonThe Record Office for Leicester, Leicestershireand Rutland and East Midlands RegionalArchives CouncilRuth HartleyMLA/National Council on Archives ArchivesWorkforce StudyAngela HaynesSouth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncilDavid HaytonQueens University Belfast, School of HistoryAlexander HaywardSuffolk County CouncilTim HeathcoteEast of England Museums, Libraries andArchives CouncilKate HebditchDorset County MuseumAlison HeightonBBC Information and ArchivesIrene HemingwayNational Trust at The GreyfriarsVincent HemingwayNational Trust at The GreyfriarsPaul HemmingsBirmingham City Archives and BirminghamLibrariesJulie HendersonThe National Archives (Historical ManuscriptsCommission)Marion HewittNorth West Film ArchiveAmanda HillHE Archives HubIan HillNational Archives of ScotlandSheila HingleyDurham University LibraryChristine HiskeyArchivist to the Earl of LeicesterTim HobbsEast Midlands Museums, Libraries andArchives CouncilSusan HockeySchool of Library, Archive and InformationStudies, University College LondonCharlotte HodgsonGlamorgan Record OfficeJune HolmesNatural History Society of NorthumbriaSimon HopkinsWest Sussex Record OfficeSarah Jane HortonStudent, University of WalesElayne HoskinThe South West Film & Television ArchiveElizabeth HowardWorcestershire Record OfficeSue HowardYorkshire Film ArchiveMike HoweNational Geoscience ArchiveMr G HowellsDyfed Family History Society

AcknowledgementsJane HubbardWisbech & Fenland MuseumSue HubbardHugh JaquesDorset Record OfficeJane JeffreyKSimon KatzenellenbogenAhmed Iqbal Ullah Race Relations Resource87Herefordshire Record OfficeArt and Creative Industries Policy Unit,CentreDavid HuddlestonPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandElizabeth HughesEast Sussex Record Office and British RecordsAssociationRoy HughesScottish ExecutiveAnne JeffreyBritish WaterwaysGwyn JenkinsNational Library WalesRhiannon JohnsJacqueline KavanaghBBC Written Archives CentreMichael KeaneTameside Local Studies & ArchivesJohn KeaniePublic Record Office of Northern IrelandHistorical AssociationSouth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesAdvisory BoardElizabeth HughesEast Sussex County Council, Heritage ServicesStephen HumphreySouthwark Local Studies LibrarySam HuntSouth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncilChristopher JohnsonLincolnshire County CouncilDavid JohnsonBritish Records AssociationSusie JohnsonJanet KenyonConsultantPhilip KiberdMLA-West MidlandsRichard KilburnYorkshire Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncilUniversity of StrathclydeCouncilNoel HunterAlastair JohnstonJudy KimberWarwickshire County Council, Libraries,Dumfries and Galloway CouncilHampshire Archives TrustHeritage & Trading StandardsDavid HylandBritish LibraryColin JohnstonBath and North East Somerset Record OfficeDorothy JohnstonRichard KnightCamden Local Studies & Archives CentreRoger KnowlesIJDr Bruce IrvingScottish Association of Family History SocietiesJane IsaacSuffolk Record OfficeRoger IvensOldham Local Studies & ArchivesBruce JacksonLancashire County Record Office,Manuscripts and Special Collections Dept,University of Nottingham LibraryJack JohnstonFederation for Ulster Local StudiesJemima JohnstoneLondon Museums, Archives LibrariesAnn JonesHeriot-Watt University and ScottishUniversities Special Collections Advisory GroupCatherine JonesFriends of the Museum of Cannock ChaseLRichard LambertOldham Libraries, Information & ArchivesDavid LammeyPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandNick LaneLondon Museums AgencyCaroline LangNorth West Sound Archive and AssociationGwynedd Archives ServiceConsultantof Chief Archivists in Local GovernmentHelen JacksonSouth East Museum, Library and ArchiveEluned JonesArchives Council WalesPhilip JonesDavid LeeWessex Film & Sound ArchiveDavid LeitchCouncilStaffordshire County Council, RecordsThe National Archives (PRO)Graham JacksonPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandChristopher JakesCambridgeshire CollectionDr Norman JamesThe National ArchivesManagement ServicesSteven JonesThe National ArchivesWilma JonesThe National ArchivesChris LevackCommanetProf Iain LevittUniversity of Central Lancaster and Chairman,Scottish Records AssociationMarilyn LewisShropshire County Council

88 Christine LiddlePonteland Local History SocietyAnnie LindsayUniversity of Glasgow and Charity Archivistsand Records Managers GroupJoyce LittleLiverpool City CouncilSamantha LittleBrixham Heritage MuseumMartin LocockArchives Network WalesBrian LoughboroughEast Midlands Museum ServiceMaggie LoughranFederation of Family History SocietiesMarion LowmanUniversity of Wales Aberystwyth, ArchivesRoy LumbJohn Rylands LibraryHeidi LutzeierWorcestershire Record OfficeMMargaret MacbrydeArchives for Education and Learning GroupMrs Ann MaceyGwent Family History SocietyArthur MacGregorAshmolean MuseumIain MaciverNational Library of ScotlandAlice MackayBishopsgate InstituteDr Margaret MackaySchool of Scottish StudiesNeville MackayFormer Chief Executive Officer, ResourceColin MacLeanHeritage Lottery FundAlan J MacLeodAssociation of Scottish Genealogists andRecord AgentsAnne MacPhersonBournemouth UniversityProf. Hector MacQueenUniversity of Edinburgh and Chair, ScottishRecords Advisory CouncilHilary MalawsRoyal Commission on Ancient and HistoricalMonuments of WalesCatherine MaloneyMuseum of LondonDavid ManderHackney Archives Department and LondonArchives Regional CouncilJanet MannThe Cheltenham Ladies’ CollegeMr J. ManningFriends of Hereford Record OfficePaola MarchionniSouth Asian Diaspora Literature and ArtsArchive (SALIDDA)John MarsdenManchester & Lancashire Family HistorySocietyFiona MarshallEast Midlands Museums, Libraries andArchives CouncilDr Vanessa MarshallNational Preservation OfficeAndy MartinMORIIan MartinKing’s Own Scottish BorderersIan MasonEast Riding Archives ServiceJanet MatthewmanGovernment Office North WestKevin MatthiasDenbighshire Record OfficeTom MayberrySomerset Record OfficeColin McAndrewLearning and Teaching ScotlandLaura McAtackneyPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandJanet McBainScottish Screen ArchiveMaura McCannPublic Record Officeof Northern Ireland Advisory BoardAileen McClintockPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandMargaret McCollumDurham University LibraryKieran McConvilleLocal Studies Library, Southern Education andLibrary BoardDr Matthew McCormickManchester UniversityKaren McCulloughDepartment of Culture, Arts and Leisure,Northern IrelandStella McDermottHeritage Lottery FundJim McGreevyKeeper of Conservation, Ulster MuseumMary McKenzieShropshire Records & Research CentreSimon McKeonBexley Local Studies & Archive CentreLuke McKernanThe Film Archive ForumVincent McKernanGreater Manchester County Record OfficeAndrew McleanMount Stuart Trust and Bute Family ArchivesSuzanne McLeodLancashire Record OfficeEila McQueenNorthern Ireland Museums CouncilPatsy McShanePublic Record Office of Northern IrelandAdvisory BoardAnn McVeighPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandElizabeth MeehanPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandAdvisory BoardChrys MellorMiddlesbrough Libraries & InformationMichael MessengerElgar Birthplace Trust

AcknowledgementsJudith Middleton-StewartSuffolk Institute of Archaeology & HistoryRob MildrenScottish Archive NetworkStephen MillerRoyal Festival HallTony MillerTracking Railway Archives ProjectKate MillinJim MuirCultural & Recreational Services, StaffordshireCounty CouncilFinton MullanUlster Historical FoundationJohn MullenGwent Family History SocietyKevin MulleyBury Archives & North West Regional ArchivesODr Irene O’BrienGlasgow City Archives and Scottish Councilon ArchivesCronan O’DoibhlinCardinal O’Fiaich Library & ArchiveMary O’DowdQueen’s University Belfast, School of HistoryMargaret O’Sullivan89Chartered Institute of Library and ArchiveCouncilBritish Association for Local History andProfessionals, MidlandsMary MillsAnthony MunfordArchives & Local Studies Service; RotherhamDerbyshire County Record OfficeDr Jonathan OatesArchives for Education and Learning GroupMetropolitan Borough CouncilLondon Borough of EalingJames MilneDavid MurrayElizabeth O’KeefeBerwick-upon-Tweed Borough CouncilCulture & Community Directorate, LondonHerefordshire Record OfficeSophia MirchandaniSouth East Museum, Library and ArchiveCouncilDr Louise MiskellUniversity of Wales SwanseaBrian MitchellThe Genealogy Centre, DerryRosalind MoadKing’s College, CambridgeGeorge MoffettBorough of NewhamMargaret MyerscoughStockport Archive ServiceNHeather NeedhamHampshire Record Office and Societyof Archivists South East RegionDr Christine NewmanVictoria County History and UniversityMartin O’KeefeNational Railway Museum, YorkClaire OrrPembrokeshire Record OfficeJoanne OrrDurham County Council Cultural ServicesPeter OvenstoneHeritage Railway Association ScottishSub-committeeDavid OwenUser, Public Record Office of Northern Irelandof DurhamRubery Owen HoldingsIan MontgomeryJames NicholsonElizabeth Oxborrow-CowanPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandFriends of Teesside ArchivesConsultantGerald MooreAberdeenshire Library & Information ServiceJenny MoranAnna NilssonMuseum of AntiquitiesTeresa NixonPDerek PalgraveNottinghamshire Archives and SocietyWorcestershire LibrariesFederation of Family History Societiesof Archivists Archives for Education andLearning GroupMr MorganFriends of Hereford Record OfficeMrs Morgan& History CentreKatie NorgroveNational Council on ArchivesZoe NormanSt. John’s College, DurhamHelen PalmerCeredigion ArchivesSusan PalmerSir John Soane’s MuseumLia ParadisFriends of Hereford Record OfficePhD Student, Rutgers UniversityJohn Morgan GuyBeverley ParkerUniversity of Wales Lampeter, ArchivesWolverhampton History & Heritage SocietyRoger MorrisJenny ParkerNorthampton Borough CouncilMiddlesbrough Reference LibraryNicola MoyleGlyn ParryPlymouth City Museum and Art GalleryNational Library of Wales

90 Paul ParryNorth West Museums, Archives and LibrariesCouncilMalcolm ParsonsNational Motor MuseumMatthew PartingtonNational Electronic and Video Archive of theCraftsJames PattersonMedia Archive for Central EnglandChristine PenneyBirmingham University Information ServicesJonathan PeplerCheshire Record OfficeJune PerrinSociety of GenealogistsLis PhelanLibraries and Theatres, Manchester CityCouncilSarah PhillipsShropshire County CouncilTricia PhillipsKent County Record OfficeCaroline PickEast Midlands Museums, Libraries andArchives CouncilJune PickerillFriends of the Museum of Cannock ChaseChris PickfordConsultantP PiggottFriends of Worcestershire Record OfficeR PiggottFriends of Worcestershire Record OfficeMary PitcaithlyFalkirk CouncilTim PorterWorcestershire County Council, Head ofCultural ServicesStuart PorthouseNorth of England Institute of Mining andMechanical EngineersMr J PowellFriends of Hereford Record OfficeNicola PowerSalford Museum & Art GalleryRachael PringleSouth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncilHuw PritchardSandwell Metropolitan Borough ArchivesJane PritchardEnglish National BalletLord Prys-DaviesPersonal responseRLinda RamsayNational Archives of ScotlandThea RandallStaffordshire Record OfficeFred RankinUser, Public Record Office of Northern IrelandRichard RatcliffeFederation of Family History SocietiesCatherine RedfearnThe National ArchivesCaroline ReedLondon Museums AgencyPeter ReedKidderminster Carpet Museum TrustCol. (retd) Tony Reed ScreenChurch Lads’ and Church Girls’ BrigadeLiz ReesTyne & Wear Archives Service and Societyof ArchivistsLeonard ReillySheffield City CouncilAlistair RennieRegisters of ScotlandPatricia ReynoldsThe Tolkien SocietyMichael RhodesTorbay Council & Devon Museums GroupAnn RhydderchGwynedd Archives and Museums ServiceCaernarfon Record OfficeGlyn RhysGlamorgan Family History SocietyKate RiceOffice of the First Minister and DeputyFirst Minister, Northern IrelandCatherine RichardsPowys County Archives OfficeIain RichesNational Trust for ScotlandDr Lesley RichmondUniversity of Glasgow and Chair, Societyof Archives Scottish RegionGeoff RiggsFederation of Family History Societies& Association of Family History Societiesof WalesDavid RimmerGwent Record OfficeMichael RiordanSt. John’s CollegeHilary RitchieSuffolk County CouncilAndrew RobertsMuseum of LondonBob RobertsBritish Records AssociationEleanor RobertsHallé Concerts SocietyLynn RobertsGwynedd Archives ServiceLaura RobertsonCentre for Buckinghamshire StudiesLaura RobertsonMilton Keynes CouncilAnn RobinsonNorthern Ireland Family History SocietyBetty RobinsonEducation & Liaison InspectorateBrenda RobinsonRedcar & Cleveland Library ServiceBridget RobinsonUKOLNJo RobsonLiverpool Record OfficeRichard RodgerUniversity of Leicester

AcknowledgementsVictoria RogersMaureen SelleyA Slaven91Coldharbour Mill MuseumFederation of Family History SocietiesCentre for Business History in Scotland,Nicholas RogersSidney Sussex CollegeCllr Kath RolphCity of SunderlandDr Alison RosieNational Registerof Archives ScotlandAnne RoweCumbria Archive ServiceM RoweThe Devon & Exeter Institution Library& Reading RoomsDr. Andrew RowleyThe National ArchivesE RoylePersonal responseNigel RudyardConsultantDavid RuseWestminster City CouncilIain RutherfordMuseums, Arts & Heritage, City of WorcesterSRobert SabinFrank SharmanWolverhampton History & Heritage SocietyBarbara SharpNottinghamshire ArchivesRobert SharpThe Science MuseumCaroline ShawThe Rothschild ArchiveRev Dr Duncan ShawScottish Record SocietyChristine ShearmanHertfordshire Archives & Local StudiesGillian SheldrickNational Monuments Record Archives,English HeritageColin ShellDepartment of Archaeology CambridgeCaroline ShentonThe Parliamentary ArchivesJan ShephardBritish Association for Local HistoryElizabeth ShepherdSchool of Library, Archive and InformationStudies, University College LondonJohn ShepherdUniversity of GlasgowHelena SmartPersonal responseJudith SmeatonNorth Yorkshire County Record OfficeJanet SmithHampshire Record OfficeAnna SouthallFormer Chief Executive, ResourceSarah StarkThe National ArchivesMargaret StathamChair of Friends of Suffolk Record OfficeElizabeth StazickerCambridgeshire County Record OfficeMiriam SteadEssex Heritage ServicesDavid StokerLiverpool Record Officeand North West Regional Archives CouncilAnna StoneAviva plcJeannette StricklandUnilever plcRoger StrongConsultantMuseum of London Archaeological SurveyPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandRoiyah Saltus-BlackwoodMr C D W SheppardOlivia StrossBlack and Asian Studies AssociationBrotherton CollectionYorkshire Film ArchiveCaroline SampsonDorothy SheridanMalcolm SunterWarwickshire County Record OfficeUniversity of Sussex LibraryFusiliers Museum of NorthumberlandLinda SamuelsHelen SherleyTerry SuthersConsultantPeterborough LibrariesHarewood House Trust LtdJohn SargentMarika SherwoodVal SwanickWestminster City ArchivesBlack and Asian Studies AssociationTenbury and District Museum SocietyLinda SargentDavid ShortMeg SweetConsultantBritish Association for Local HistoryThe National ArchivesStephen ScarthAnna SiddallKeith SweetmorePublic Record Office of Northern IrelandNorth East Museums, Libraries and ArchivesWest Yorkshire Archive ServiceWendy ScottFriends of Berwick Museum & ArchiveNigel SearleCambridgeshire Family History SocietyCouncilPaul SillitoeBritish Waterways TrustJohn SinnottPhilip SykasTextiles/Fashion Department, ManchesterMetropolitan UniversityLeicestershire County Council

92 TJanice TaitThe Tank MuseumCharles TalbotCarpet Museum TrustJean TalbotCarpet Museum TrustFiona TalbottLondon Museums Agency and LondonMuseums, Archives and LibrariesJanet TallSomerset Record OfficeSimon TannerHigher Education Digitisation ServiceDr Anne TarverStaffordshire Archive ServiceHazel TatlowBirmingham Institute for Art & DesignMartin TaylorHull City ArchivesRay TaylorHeritage Lottery FundRichard TaylorNational Railway Museum, YorkDr Stephen TaylorAssociation of Genealogists and Researchers inArchives, StaffordshireAlda TerracianoFuture HistoriesJoanna TerryModern Records Unit, WorcestershireRecord OfficeGwyn ThomasSuffolk Record OfficeMartin ThomasSouth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncilSylvia ThomasWest Yorkshire Archive ServiceKate ThompsonConsultantJoan ThorleyBuckinghamshire Family History SocietyJennifer ThorpHighclere Castle and Secretary of the HistoricHouses Archivists GroupMartin TimmsLondon Borough of Redbridge LibrariesKate TobiasBuick Cheshire Record OfficeJames TonkinFriends of Hereford Record OfficeMrs M T TonkinFriends of Hereford Record OfficeAlistair ToughGlasgow University Archive ServicesAndrew TrendPersonal responseNigel TringhamVictoria County History, StaffordshireAlec TrittonFederation of Family History SocietiesJanice TullockNorth West Museums, Libraries and ArchivesCouncilLaura TurnerScarborough Museums and GalleryMargaret TurnerNational Council on Archives and ConsultantMLA/National Council on Archives ArchivesWorkforce StudyJames TurtleGloucestershire County Records Office andSociety of Archivists Archives for Educationand Learning GroupRosemary TylerPrescot MuseumDavid TyrellTeesside ArchivesMartin TysonGeneral Register Office for ScotlandUVBob UsherwoodUniversity of Sheffield: MLA/National Councilon Archives Archives Workforce StudyRoger VaughanArts & Heritage, City of CoventryMaggie Vaughan-LewisSurrey Record CentrePeter VigursMLA-West Midlands BoardMartin VineBritish Antarctic SurveyAlan VoceTiverton MuseumRuth VyseWalsall History CentreWCatherine WakelingUnited Society for the Propogation of theGospel and The Charity Archivists and RecordsManagers GroupIan WakelingThe Children’s Society and The CharityArchivists and Records Managers GroupAlison WalkerNational Preservation Office, British LibraryEileen WallaceArchives in Education Group, Societyof ArchivistsBernadette WalshDerry City Council ArchivesJane WaltonYorkshire Museums Libraries and ArchivesCouncilClothilde WangRecords Management Society of Great BritainHelen WardEast Midlands Museums Libraries andArchives CouncilKevin WardBedfordshire and Luton Archives and RecordServiceTerry WaterfieldEast Midlands Regional Archives Council

AcknowledgementsAlan WatkinAndy WhitePatricia Winker93Libraries, Leisure and Culture, Wrexham andPublic Record Office of Northern IrelandPersonal responseBoard member, Museums, Libraries andHeather WhiteDr Michael WinstanleyArchives CouncilBracknell Forest Borough CouncilLancaster UniversityIan WatsonRob WhiteRuth WinstoneArts, Heritage & Leisure Department, City ofLincolnshire ArchivesEditor of the Benn diariesBradford Metropolitan District CouncilRoger WatsonFox Talbot MuseumMatti WattonThe National GalleryMartin WattsYork Museums TrustSylvia WattsFriends of Shropshire Records & ResearchRoyd WhitlockPersonal responseJane WhittakerThe Bowes MuseumRobin WhittakerWorcestershire County Record OfficeLouise WhitworthBarnsley Archives and Local StudiesSarah WickhamMichael WoodSociety of GenealogistsSue WoodNorthumberland County Record OfficeChristine WoodlandUniversity of Warwick, Modern Records CentreChris WoodsUK Institute for ConservationEmily WoolmoreCentreRoyal Northern College of MusicBolton Archives and Local StudiesMark WeaverDeirdre WildyTim WormleightonAstrazenecaQueen’s University BelfastNorth Devon Record OfficeChris WebbRichard WilkinSusan WorrallBorthwick Institute of Historical ResearchHistoric Houses AssociationCoventry Record OfficeMichael WebbPenny WilkinsonVictoria WorsleyWestern Manuscripts Department, BodleianNorth East Museums, Libraries and ArchivesHenry Moore InstituteLibraryJerry WeberEast Midlands Museums Libraries andArchives CouncilBrenda WeedenUniversity of WestminsterChristopher WelchWakefield & District Family History SocietyTerry WellsCarmarthenshire Archives ServiceChris WestUniversity of Wales Swansea, Library andCouncilGlenys WillarsLeicestershire County CouncilAllan WilliamsKeele University Library Digitisation UnitCaroline WilliamsLiverpool University Centre for Archive StudiesEsther WilliamsLancashire Record OfficeJohn WilliamsBristol Record OfficeJulia WilliamsCllr Laraine WotherspoonBerwick Borough CouncilStuart WrathmellArchaeological Services, West YorkshireArchive ServiceXYZProf. Lola YoungGreater London AssemblyInformation ServicesWelsh Assembly GovernmentMurray WestonHeather WilliamsonBritish Universities Film & Video CouncilMLA-West MidlandsHildred WhaleGordon WillisSouth Tyneside LibrariesUniversity of StirlingPat WhatleySimon WilsonScottish Council on Archives and UniversityMersey Gateway Projectof DundeeTony WherryWorcestershire County Record OfficeJohn WilsonUlster MuseumMarie WilsonGenealogical Researcher

DArchives Task Force Report annexes published online94 The Archives Task Force undertook a programme ofdetailed research and consultation. Much of this evidencehas been gathered together and is freely downloadablefrom the MLA website: www.mla.gov.ukContextual papersABArchives Task Force MethodologyNote on the Archives Task Force and the devolvedadministrationsSupporting researchCDEFGHSelect bibliography, research and case studiesNon-Archive Users Survey: Omnibus Study(MORI)Towards a Better Understanding of non-users(Sabin-Samuels)Secondary Impact of Archives: indicators and trends(Janet Kenyon)Archives Workforce Study (National Council onArchives/University of Sheffield/MLA)On-line media coverage of archives 1999–2003(Emily Mealey)Consultation evidenceISummary report of the Archives Task Force consultationprogramme

IMAGE CREDITS95(Unless presented earlier)Front cover, top: Domesday Book, © Public Record Office; Centre:Policeman Jock Lovat helps with some directions in London’s PiccadillyCircus, © Hulton Archive/Getty Images; Bottom: Thousands of peoplegather in Hyde Park, London, after finishing an anti-war protest march,15 February 2003, © Scott Barbour/Getty Images.Back cover, top: © Royal Geographical Society. Bottom: Winston ChurchillMaking Victory Sign, © Corbis.Page 3 Photo: ITN 5 North West Film Archive* 10 Notting Hill Carnival ©Alamy/Janine Wiedel Photolibrary 13 The art nouveau cover of an editionof ‘Art Journal’ magazine, about the work of William Morris, © ChrisHellier/Corbis 14 The Guardian Newsroom* 17 The title page of ThomasCranmer’s bible, © Hulton Archive/Getty Images 19 The GuardianNewsroom* 20 © Topman/Press Association/Michael Crabtree22 World Cup Final 1966 Wembley, England, 30 July 1966. England’scaptain Bobby Moore holds the Jules Rimet World Cup trophy, © Alamy25 Paper collectable from the Beatles film, ‘Yellow Submarine,’ by directorGeorge Dunning, 1968, © Hulton Archive/Getty Image 31 Public RecordsOffice, Kew* 35 Angliae et Hiberniae, © Royal Geographical Society38 Rothschild Archive Library, 1822 Austrian Grant of Arms*49 A British recruitment poster urging women to work in the munitionsfactories as part of Britain’s homefront during World War I, © HultonArchive/Getty Images 52 Surrey History Centre* 56 Space Shuttle Atlantictaking off, © Alamy 59 Blue aguilegia flowers and butterflies decorating amedical manuscript from the Middle Ages, © Hulton Archive/Getty Images68 The newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II, during her coronationceremony, Westminster Abbey, London, 2 June 1953, © HultonArchive/Getty Images 70 North West Film Archive 76 Public RecordsOffice, Kew* 80 Public Records Office, Kew* 94 King’s College Archive,London** Photos: Jonathan GoldbergQUOTATIONS5 South East Archive Strategy 14 East Midlands Archive Strategy38 North West Archive Strategy

96The Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA)is the national development agency working for and onbehalf on behalf of of museums, libraries libraries and and archives archives in in England,advising the government on policy and priorities for thesector. the sector.Current news, developments and information are availableto view or download from:www.mla.gov.ukCopies of this publication can beprovided in alternative formats.Please contact MLA publicationson 020 7273 1458.© MLA 2004© Registered MLA 2004 Charity No: 1079666Registered ISBN 1–903743–49–4Charity No: 1079666ISBN 1–903743–49–4Designed by Satpaul BhamraPrinted by RouteMuseums, libraries and archivesconnect people to knowledgeand information, creativity andinspiration. MLA is leadingthe drive to unlock this wealth,for everyone.

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