I seem to have 'lost' Bruce's response. However, I would, like to add Northamptonshire's confirmation of burgeoning numbers.
The visitor figures just garnered for our annual report (April - March) show an increase of 3160 ( about 25%)  Note that that figure excludes any group or school visits.
The number of documents and fiche and films produced have also gone up: by 5204 and 2736 respectively
Rachel

>>> "Jackson,  Bruce" <[log in to unmask]> 05/04/00 10:11:28 >>>


-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Childs [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: 05 April 2000 09:55
To: Jackson, Bruce
Cc: [log in to unmask] 
Subject: Re: Visitor numbers




I've just had an opportunity to do some number crunching of my own on the
visitor figures for West Sussex Record Office over the past three months.
Our
visitor numbers have increased by 26.5 per cent over the three month period
January to March compared with the same period in 1999. Breaking these
figures
down by month we had 12 per cent more visitors in March, 13 per cent more in
February and an incredible 71 per cent more in January !!
As to the reasons for the increase we did acquire the GRO indexes in January
and
also the 1881 census index on CD-ROM but this can only be part of the
answer.
Bearing in mind that nationally 43.2 per cent of visitors to British
archives
are aged 60 or over (according to the recent CIPFA Survey) could the mild
winter
have anything to do with the numbers?
Richard Childs
County Archivist
West Sussex Record Office




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