Memorandum submitted by the Society of
Archivists
This submission has been prepared for the Culture,
Media and Sport Committee, and is from the Society of Archivists,
which exists "to promote the care and preservation of archives
and the better administration of archive repositories to advance
the training of its members and to encourage relevant research
and publication" (See www.archives.org.uk). Its membership
include records managers and conservators as well as archivists,
and is steadily increasing at the present time, having recently
passed the 2,000 mark. The Society operates throughout the UK
and Ireland, though it is understood that for present purposes,
it is essentially to England that the consultation applies. In
recent times it has been seeking to improve its lines of communication
across the museum, library, archives and records management sectors,
but these comments represent the Society's membership only.
Central to our concerns regarding the consultation
is the Museums Libraries and Archives organisation (MLA), and
it is for this reason that I intend to deal first with the last
of the three elements of the consultation, namely the effectiveness
of DCMS and MLA. To archivists and the archive sector as a whole,
the creation of MLA seemed to be the most significant event to
happen for many years. Although the organisation has changed its
name several times since its inception, the central concept of
Museums, Libraries and Archives has been central from the outset.
It is scarcely too much to say that MLA called archives into a
real existence as a sector that they had not enjoyed before.
This may seem a strange thing to say in view
of the proud county record office tradition of England, but nevertheless
the structure of archives in England is and has been a disparate
and difficult one. Not only is the sector of necessity much smaller
than that of museums and libraries, but there has been a division
between the national institutions—the Public Record Office,
the Historical Manuscripts Commission (now combined as The National
Archives (TNA)) and the British Library on the one hand, and the
localities on the other (admittedly something which is to be found
to differing extents in the other sectors). More importantly however,
until their recognition in the structure of MLA, there was no
body representing archives as a whole to parallel the Museums
and Galleries Commission or the Library and Information Council.
The Society of Archivists and, more recently, the National Council
on Archives (NCA) have in various ways sought to fill this gap
and, subject to some adjustment of roles, continue to do so. But
the Society of Archivists is essentially a membership organisation,
seeking to provide education, training and other services to its
members. The NCA has come to enjoy some official recognition -
institutional support from TNA, membership of the Interdepartmental
Archives Committee—but it has little standing other than
as a sounding-board for opinion on various matters across the
sector.
The explicit recognition, through MLA, of archives
as a member of a triumvirate, separate from museums and libraries,
but seen as on par with them, was therefore a fresh and very welcome
development. What was required as a next step was a full recognition
of this free-standing separateness within MLA, and MLA can indeed
point to encouraging developments—the Action Plan, the Archive
Task Force (ATF), the regional strategies, and other studies.
This is greatly to be welcomed and encouraged, at a time when
the value of archives has been appreciated as never before. There
is no doubt that the success of television programmes on family
and local history have sparked an unprecedented interest in archives
and the information they can provide, while at the same time the
demands of Freedom of Information and Data Protection have stressed
the vital necessity of good record keeping. And all this has to
be seen in the context of a digital revolution which is providing
greater availability of archival information and ease of access
to it, while at the same time casting up serious preservation
headaches. Having said all this, it is clear that there are far
fewer archive professionals working within MLA compared to the
other two sectors, and the ATF report, though it contained some
areas of interest, did not seem to have much "meat"
on anything, and gave no hint of possible funding. There is, I
would say, a general feeling within the archive community that,
for all the general improvement in the situation, much of what
MLA is doing is cosmetic rather than actual ( unlike the Museums
sector interests, Icon, MA etc).
What is somewhat dispiriting therefore, is that
in response to a parliamentary question earlier this year, it
was disclosed that expenditure by MLA on museums had risen from
£261.6 millions to £341.5 millions in the previous two
years for which figures were available, library expenditure went
from £94.8 to £106.2 millions, while the archives sector
received £300,000 in each of those years. Even making allowance
for the relatively raw nature of these figures, for the very different
sizes of the different sectors, and for the fact that MLA is not
responsible for all archival expenditure, this is a quite extraordinary
disparity. The safety of collections, their adequate cataloguing
and hence availability, the encouragement of good practice in
selection, accommodation and storage, cannot be guaranteed, or
even expected, on such a level of funding. This is to my mind
the most important single issue facing the sector.
Acquisition and disposal policies, the third
element in the consultation, tend to be rather different for archives
from the other two sectors. Archives usually serve an institution,
whether a local authority, corporate body, or government department.
As such therefore, the policy of acquiring, storing and making
available of the records of that institution is something of a
given, with the discretionary element coming in appraising what
to accept or reject. Good judgment in this involves not merely
the historical or intellectual value of the records selected for
preservation, but also their value as evidence of the activities
of the institution. Unlike libraries or museums, little expenditure
on purchase is incurred.
The one exception lies in the case of private
records, whether the traditional records of landed estates, the
more modern records of commercial enterprises, or the papers of
prominent individuals. When material of this sort comes on the
market, or is offered to an archive for sale, and is clearly relevant
to the nature of its other holdings, then it may be necessary
to find extraordinary unbudgeted-for sums, and an archive may
find itself in competition with other institutions, in some cases
overseas. In this archives are no different from the other sectors,
but the interest in archives of the public at large, extends to
owners of records with an appreciation of their cash value and
the indications are that archives may have to find increasing
funds to acquire and retain records of extraordinary historical
value.
September 2006
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