Dear all,
I'm posting this via the web form rather than by e-mail as I'm currently unable to send e-mails (I can receive them though!). As a result links may not show as I would expect them to and other formatting fun. For that I apologise!
In 2014 there were extensive discussions about this particular discussion - you can read them in the archive at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A1=ind1404&L=herforum#23 if you really want to :)
As a result of these discussions the question was changed to make it more descriptive of what we were looking for. At the end of the day though all HERs were not going to necessarily be able to undertake exactly the same search - different databases, different recording policies etc. all add to the complexity of searching. Therefore the resulting data was only going to be a rough guide and what we were most interested in was comparing the data from 2014 to subsequent results. The 2014 data for this question was essentially baseline information. Therefore it is probably more important that HERs try to be consistent with how they performed the search in 2016 with how they undertook it in 2014.
This too is not without issue - you may not remember exactly how you did the search or you may not have been the person who did the search in 2014 so have no idea how it was done. However it is nearly impossible to design the perfect survey, especially for such a complex subject matter. So I encourage HERs to do the best that they can but try not to get bogged down in too much detail. All we want is a current snapshot of your HER to be able to build a national or where necessary regional picture.
If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to ask.
all the best
Sarah
Sarah MacLean MA (Cantab) MCIfA
Heritage Information Partnerships Supervisor
Listing Group
Historic England
Direct Dial: 01793 414880 Mobile: 07827 802232
