Sorry for cross-posting

Dear All,

Welcome to another week!

A long time ago (over a year) I asked for expressions of interest to become part of a Society of Archivists working group addressing workforce diversity in the archives sector. Things did not progess as fast as I had hoped; however, I am now happy to report that a small group of us met last month to work out the beginnings of a survey. Because so much time has passed, I am now inviting anyone who originally expressed an interest and anyone else who might not have been aware of this to contact me (on

The planned survey will be available to anyone working in the sector and will hopefully be completed by the end of this year. I would like people to volunteer initially to comment on the draft survey and then to be 'survey advocates' (i.e. nagging people to complete it!) so we get as wide a repsonse as possible. I hope to do this in the next couple of weeks.

The work will focus, in the first instance, on workforce (rather than audience) diversity. The thinking behind the survey is that we need data on the current diversity of the sector before we can begin to address issues. We all have an impression about how diverse, or not, the sector is, but no accurate information actually exists to confirm or challege these feelings. This will be our starting point.

Even if you feel that you cannot be actively involved, your response to the survey will be very important. Please give this work your support.

Thanks in advance

Jenny

Jenny Moran

Honorary Secretary

Society of Archivists