I do agree with the need to distinguish the unique nature and needs of
archives but I would like to point out that by being prepared to work
cross-sectorally we have already secured a place on the government's
agenda, a direct dialogue with the government agency re:source and the
establishment of a national network of regional archive councils.  All this
is now underpinned by the posts of NCA Archives Officer for the Regions,
the Re:source Archives Adviser and, obliquely, the Lottery Officer.  This
situations means that, for the first time, archives means more to central
government than just the PRO.  Through these mechanisms central Government
is becoming aware of the both the successes and failings of  regional
archives and appear serious about overcoming the domain's problems.  It is
now up to the archives and records management professionals to make
explicit that they have numerous roles and responsibilities that they are
best placed to fulfill.  It would appear that the powers that be are
prepared to listen so make yourself heard!

Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan
Secretary, Society of Archivists' Re:source Task Force

----------
> From: Alice Lock <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Levelling the playing field
> Date: 01 December 2000 20:49
>
> This is a point that struck me at the Society of Archivists Conference
> this year, actually. Whilst I was sitting watching a stream of speakers
> talking about a brave new world of closer links between the disciplines
> I was thinking that in my own circumstances (similar to Wigan- a one
> person office in Greater Manchester and part of a "heritage services"
> setup with museums and libraries) this was rather redundant. I spend a
> lot of my time trying to accentuate the difference between the
> professions so that this service does not get categorised as merely a
> subset of the libraries service- the librarian who deals with older
> books. Archive services tend to be smaller and less well funded than
> either libraries and museums and there is always a danger of them being
> consumed.
>
> This has several knock on effects, one of them indeed being records
> management. I have been trying to convince my authority of the
> importance of the forthcoming FOI legislation in terms of setting up a
> proper RM system, but it does make it hard when you're trying to do this
> from the position of being a fairly junior member of staff within the
> library service. Greater Manchester, and London, are particularly
> vulnerable in this area, as a lot of the archive services are one person
> offices run by relatively junior members of staff- I am the only
> archivist employed by this fairly large metropolitan borough, and am
> thus I suppose technically a Head of Repository, but I don't get much
> more than the prospective victim at Wigan. The structure also affects
> this, as it seems to me (from a small sample) that those offices which
> emerged from corporate or central departments generally pay better than
> those in a heritage services set up.
>
> The ethos of cultural services and libraries at the moment is so geared
> towards the magic term "access" that other things are being subsumed-
> delivery of services electronically, remote user access, best value,
> enquiry response targets, visitor number targets mean that I haven't
> actually catalogued anything for months. But try telling a heritage
> services department that perhaps archive services should have different
> criteria applied. If we did have a proper records management program it
> would be seen as a curiosity within a library system which deals with
> public access, and wouldn't fit in with the action plan/ performance
> target/ access  system that we operate by
>
> There are other knock on effects of junior members of the profession
> running their own offices which I could mention- eg registration. Why
> should I jump through hoops to prove with a portfolio that I've done
> something towards helping the office I'm employed in when I've been
> running it for the past year? Shouldn't the registration scheme be more
> flexible and geared towards the candidate? This is unrelated to the
> above but a bit of a bee in my bonnet at the moment.
>
> Sorry to rant
>
> Alan carter,
> Archivist,
> Tameside Local Studies and Archive Service Unit