Listening to the Past, Speaking to the Future

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