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Officers of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives:
Chairman: Mr Tim Boswell MP
Vice-Chairs: Lord Howarth CBE, Lord Redesdale, Dr Hywel Francis MP
Secretary: Professor the Lord Bew
Parliamentarians hear how we must all act now to save our archival heritage
8 July 2008, River Room, House of Lords
On 8 July, against the elegant backdrop of the River Room in the House of Lords, members of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives learnt more about some of the major issues facing the sustainability of Britain's archive collections from a panel of leading sector experts.
Tim Boswell MP, the Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Archives called the meeting to order and welcomed the guests to the River Room, House of Lords, on behalf of the sponsoring Peer, Professor the Lord Bew, the Group's Secretary, who was unavoidably delayed due to a Committee Meeting. Mr Boswell then introduced the expert panel Chair, Professor Lisa Jardine.
The expert panel Chair, Professor Lisa Jardine CBE, Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London and Chair of the Human Fertlisation & Embryology Authority, explained that she was attending the APG on Archives event in her capacity as Patron of the National Council on Archives (NCA), a position she often plugged on her many radio programme appearances. The panel was made up of Natalie Ceeney, Chief Executive of The National Archives; Sue Wilkinson, Director of Policy & Sustainability at the Museums, Libraries & Archives Council (MLA) and Richard Ovenden FRSA, Associate Director of the Bodleian Library.
Professor Lisa Jardine started the meeting by emphasising the 'genuine crisis' for the future of archives. She pointed out that in modern society archives are very often viewed as not being so remote as to be cherished as icons from the past, nor so familiar as to be cherished in themselves. Professor Jardine reiterated the message that we need to act now to preserve archival materials if they are to be protected for future generations.
Sue Wilkinson outlined the key roles of the MLA has the lead strategic body for museums, libraries and archives and the changes and its new ways of working nationally and regionally. Sue explained the national and regional context within which archives are operating highlighting the sub-regional review, the creation of integrated regional strategies; the review of government regional structures by the Secretary of State, the new powers and duties of Local Authorities and the McMaster review as being of particular importance to the sector. She outlined the current work being undertaken by the MLA and The National Archives to develop a joint strategy emphasising the importance of the archive sector to many local, regional and national Government strategies in particular community cohesion, bridging the social divide, contributing to economic regeneration and supporting both formal and informal learning.
Whilst there is not a specific indicator for archives in the national indicator set, Sue Wilkinson argued that archives could contribute to the delivery of local government outcomes by linking the work they do with those indicators which measure a citizen's understanding of their place within their community, the level of civic participation within a given area, how much time people give to voluntary work in their area and positive activities for young people. Sue argued that archives need to look at how they can integrate with other services, develop new partnerships and new ways of working and more forcefully articulate what they contribute at a local level. She ended by talking about how MLA will support this work through investment in delivering the joint strategy; building its research capacity; identifying and disseminating best practice, rolling out the single improvement tool, ensuring archives are part of the Find Your talent programme and building archives in to the 2012 programme.
Richard Ovenden, Associate Director and Keeper of Special Collections at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, raised concerns about the future of born digital archives. He explained that one of the fundamental questions needing to be addressed is how the rich and diverse collection of personal archives can be captured when they are created electronically, or "born digital". The PARADIGM Project, run by the Bodleian Library, has sought to answer this question through the archiving of the electronic records of politicians.
The Project considered every aspect of preserving digital records, which are as much about information management as archival practice. Richard explained that methods to ensure deposit, security, integrity, authenticity and sustainability are all being developed, alongside an expert panel assessing what material would be of value in the future. In so doing the Bodleian can develop staff, technology, services, data security and property rights to ensure sustainability. The Mellon Foundation has now agreed to continue to fund this work for a future three years. Richard also raised the issue of smaller archives without this level of resource. He suggested that larger archives look to how they can support their smaller counterparts. Finally Richard emphasised that archivists must tackle the electronic records issue to ensure that they engender the most important value for archives, which is trust.
And trust is just what Natalie Ceeney, Chief Executive of the National Archives, tackled alongside accountability. She pointed out that we couldn't assume archival content will just materialise into the archival management process, it has to be captured. Natalie explained that this was a very complex process given the variety of electronic communication and the exponential rise in traffic. For example, personal websites and blogs are now widely used by ministers and other politicians to communicate within government and to publicise their work and activities outside of formal government structures.
To illustrate the potential impact of not treating the issue of digital record keeping seriously and of not guarding against digital obsolescence, Natalie Ceeney compared the 1086 Domesday Book and the BBC's 1986 electronic version. Whilst the original survives as an icon of our cultural heritage the BBC's is now unusable.
Natalie also cited the example of the Ministry of Defence paying out £97m in 2001/2 alone as a result of successful negligence claims against it. The NAO found that as a result of a lack of evidence relating to risk management and other factors which could have been used in defending these claims, the MoD was probably paying out far more in compensation payments than it really needed to. Underlining the huge political importance of archives and information management, Natalie used the case study of the Japanese government falling from power in 2007, primarily because it was unable to prove the audit trail of pension payments. Natalie's message was clear in that we are all accountable and must consciously collect and preserve for business use rather than leaving it to chance as has happened in the past. As a result history will flow.
The questions to the panel exhibited a myriad of concerns. Views were expressed, not least by the Group's Chairman, Tim Boswell MP, regarding the purchase of archival materials by foreign collectors; an issue which was acknowledged affected the whole of the cultural sector. It was agreed that the development of a philanthropic culture in the arts, akin to that of the States could be one way of securing proper resource for saving archives and keeping collections within the UK. Cultural diversity and the need for archive services to bring communities together were also shown to be a major priority for the sector.
Finally, all contributors agreed that we all have an individual responsibility to ensure our own digital records have the best chance of survival, in both our professional and personal lives.
Professor Jardine thanked the panel members for their thought provoking and interesting presentations and called upon Lord Bew and Tim Boswell to end the meeting with a vote of thanks to the panel members and to NCA for organising the event.