With apologies for cross-posting

National Council on Archives’ April Meting

Council moves closer to possible merger

Get set for innovation

Taking advocacy for archives to Local Government

Know your volunteers

2009 Public Service Quality Group Visitor Survey now under way

Council moves closer to possible merger

Council accepted the Memorandum of Understanding arising from the sector organisational review held between NCA, the Society of Archivists (SoA) and the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government (ACALG). Members were reassured that the NCA’s unique membership would be recognised in some way in the new organisation. The NCA and ACALG would be dissolved into the Society of Archivists’ legal structure to simplify procedures with the Charity Commission and Companies’ House. This merged body will then become an entirely new organisation with its own mission and structure, as agreed by the three predecessor bodies.

Get set for innovation

Declan Kelly, Vice Chair of the Council, gave a presentation to Council on the Pace Setters Programme. This NCA-led programme is designed to provide award status to innovative projects. Its purpose is to encourage innovation, provide local and national advocacy and to provide guidance in project planning, management and evaluation regardless of the scale of the project or archive service. Work is currently underway on a communications plan and branding. It is intended that the programme will award Pace Setters status to 50 projects over a period of 3 years. The scheme should be launched in Autumn of this year.

Taking advocacy for archives to Local Government

As part of NCA’s on-going advocacy to key decision makers, the NCA launched ‘Your Past Our Future – A Guide to Local Government Archives’ at the Local Government Association Culture Conference in March. The Guide has also been sent to all Chief Executives of local government administrations. Hard copies are available from NCA and it is available on the NCA website. The Guide will provide a basis for future advocacy work in this area and is available for all the sector to use in their own advocacy work alongside other NCA resources, such as the Parliamentary Briefings.

Know your volunteers

Archives Lottery Officer, Louise Ray, on behalf of the NCA, has produced an insightful report on volunteers working in archives, analysing the extent of volunteering, participants’ motivation, management approaches, and benefits for the archive service as well as numerous case studies. It will be of great interest and practical value to anyone involved in volunteer participation in archives both from an operational perspective and strategically. The Report will be also available on the MLA website in the near future. The Report ‘s findings will be presented at the Public Service Quality Group’s (PSQG) forum on 4th November at TNA.

2009 Public Service Quality Group Visitor Survey now under way

The now familiar PSQG Archive Visitors’ Survey is taking place in May/ June this year. In line with the PSQG’s aspirations to expand measurement of quality service to all aspects of archive services, the Group intends to conduct a survey of remote users in 2010.

Elizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan

Director of Publicity and Communication

The National Council on Archives

Tel/fax 01939 234289