I am writing in my private capacity, and not on behalf of my employer or any organisation.
In considering how archives fare in austere times, please let’s remember the huge quantities of archives that are still out in the community.
The danger to these is greater than before for (at least) six reasons.
- Business closures
- Reorganisation of local government, NHS etc
- Businesses and organisations that survive have less money for storage
- A general presumption that originals don’t have to be preserved because they can be scanned
- Emphasis on eliminating cataloguing backlogs means less incentive to take in new archives
- Archivists have fewer resources (time, staff etc) for acquiring collections
Rescuing archives is going to be both more urgent and more difficult over the next few years.
This covers personal and corporate records, and applies to any repository whose remit goes beyond its employing organisation.
Please note this is a separate issue from the challenge of preserving born-digital records.
Bill Wexler, Public Service Archivist
Suffolk Record Office (Lowestoft Branch), Central Library, Clapham Road, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR32 1DR. Tel: (01502) 405362. Website: http://www.suffolkcc.gov.uk/sro/
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disclosure or modification of this email message or its attachments other than by its intended recipient is strictly prohibited by the sender. if you have received it in error, I apologise and ask that you delete it and inform me immediately. The views
contained in this message are those of the individual and do not represent the views of the County Council.
As everyone will be all to well aware by now, tomorrow will see an emergency budget, widely trailed as heralding the deepest spending cuts for a generation.
Colleagues in higher education and local authorities already have some inkling of what the effects might be, but have we as a profession thought of what our approach should be? The level of cuts that has been trailed presages a long hard look at what
local authorities should continue to do, and we may not just be looking at percentage cuts, but the wholesale retreat from some provision of services. This may well be coupled with the practical effects of the ‘Big Society’ idea – greater use of volunteers.
Many of us support the considerable contribution volunteers make to what we do – but also recognise the investment in staff and management that is needed to get the best from those volunteers and treat them fairly. We don’t envisage services that are almost
wholly dependent on volunteers – though that is what may be on the cards.
Archives for the 21st Century rowed back on the more radical implications of the ‘fewer, bigger stronger’ line of thinking and rightly encouraged the exploration of partnership working. There are relatively few examples of archive services that have come
together other than as a result of local government reorganisation and creating successful patterns of common working in ordinary times would require ad-hoc working to create the basis for more shared services. We may not now have that luxury of time if cuts,
especially to smaller and potentially more vulnerable local authority and HE services lead to service closure and ‘moth-balling’ of collections, as has already happened at Salford. At that point there are no remaining resources to persuade senior managers to
look at joint services – it is too late. I fear that the coming round will not prompt creative thinking, but rather panic within each local authority silo as cuts are worked out within the authority, without the time to consider how services can be sustained
in different – and shared – models.
So why this email now? I think we need a debate on what our stance as a profession should be. For those attending the Archives policy road shows there should be the chance to put your views and see how the change of government has affected the thinking
behind a strategy presented to the last government. But we need a vision of what archive services should be in a new and austere world and be clear on what opportunities there will be for us. We should then invite Ed Vaizey, the minister with responsibility
for archives in DCMS, to give the government’s view of the future, perhaps after the spending round has been announced in the autumn, hear his position and put questions and ideas directly to him.
Archives for London has the capacity to host a London-based meeting and would be willing to work with ARA London and any other interested organisation to make the invitation and plan date and venue, though we would also partner ARA at a national level,
should Council decide to take this on.
But for the time being the discussion list is yours. I know many of you will feel constrained by your role as an employee, but the debate for the time being is not about individual services – it is about our professional place in the debate and the stand
we, as a profession should take.
David Mander OBE
159 Alexandra Park Road
London N22 7UL
020 8889 4353
07970 215851