It seems to me that there are several issues here. There will be a lot
of money and effort devoted in the next few years to making record
office lists and indexes available for searching on the Web. There are
projects for Wales and Scotland similar to that for England mentioned by
Peter. Their aim is to digitise the finding aids rather than the
documents themselves, and this is going to happen anyway, whether mining
historians use these facilities or not.

I am concerned, though, that some people don't realize the limitations
of indexes, however much easier they make things. Anyone who has written
the history of a mine knows that much information comes from Ordnance
Survey and tithe maps, references in long runs of correspondence,
newspapers, etc, which are not going to be included in catalogues and
indexes such as the above.

Every record office has a certain proportion of its holdings unlisted,
sometimes as much as thirty or forty per cent of them, although in my
experience industrial records get a high priority for cataloguing
because they are in demand. There is certainly scope for volunteer
labour, and many record offices now have friends organizations which
undertake this. Family historians have done a tremendous amount of work
transcribing and indexing parish registers, the census, etc. 

There is also scope for making sources such as reports of Royal
Commissions (or the Mining Journal, to pursue the hare I started last
year) available on the Web, but it seems to me that this is something
which needs to be done by a specialist body with a particular interest
in that field. It would be an expensive business, but it is possible to
get grant aid to finance it. (Such a specialist body might also be able
to publish in electronic form.) I was interested to hear that Exeter
University is shortly to make the Mineral Statistics available, as I
believe that sources such as this, basic ones which cover the whole
country and are also difficult of access, are the best candidates, for
which grant aid could be obtained most easily. As one who doesn't have
access to a university library, and lives a long way from any national
one, I agree that Royal Commission reports would be very useful in
digital form. Does Exeter have any further ambitions in this direction?

________________________________________________

Christopher J Williams, 65 Stancliffe Avenue, 
Marford, Wrexham, Wales LL12 8LN

Tel: 01978 852601
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