Survey of visitors to British archives, June 1998

Journal of the Society of Archivists

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 177-194

  Ailes, Adrian ^a   Watt, Iain ^b  

^a THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES   (United Kingdom)

^b NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0033212656     PISSN: 00379816     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/003798199103604     Document Type: Review

References (15)

1. The Public Services Quality Group for archives and local studies was established in 1996 as an informal network for archivists interested in best practice and quality issues in public services. It aims to enable individuals to establish contact with, and learn from, practitioners at the forefront of developments in the archive community. Membership of the group is defined by participation and anyone who is interested can attend events.
2. The members of the working group were: Chris Pickford (Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service and now with the Church of England Record Centre), Iain Watt (Public Record Office), Katherine Bligh (House of Lords Record Office), Richard Childs (West Sussex Record Office), Sue Edwards (Glamorgan Record Office), Heather Forbes (Hampshire Record Office), Olive Geddes (National Library of Scotland), Ian Hill (Scottish Record Office), Malcolm Holmes (London Borough of Camden), Deborah Jenkins (London Metropolitan Archives), Nick Kingsley (Birmingham Central Archive), Richard Knight (Camden Local Studies and Archives Centre), David Lammey (PRONI), David Mander (Hackney Archives), Margaret O'Sullivan (Derbyshire Record Office), Geoff Pick (London Metropolitan Archives), Alex Ritchie (HMC), Catherine Starren (Kensington and Chelsea Libraries), Roger Vaughan (Coventry Archives), Rachel Watson (Northamptonshire Record Office).
3. I. Mortimer (ed.), Record Repositories in Great Britain, 10th edn (The Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, PRO Publications, 1997).
4. Record Repositories in Great Britain, p v.
5. The participants in the Dutch/Belgian project were: Gemeentearchief Breda, Haags Gemeentearchief, Regionaal Archief West-Brabant, Rijksarchief in Noord-Holland, Stadsarchief te Antwerpen and the Algemeen Rijksarchief.
6. The PRO team consisted of Adrian Ailes, Nick Barratt, Chris Millard, Sarah Jane Newbery and lain Watt.
7. To illustrate the difference between aggregates and averages, take a hypothetical survey with five participating institutions. Each institution has a different sample size: 50, 75, 100, 125, 150. The aggregate total is 500 responses. If 10 responses to a given question in each institution are 'excellent' then the total is 50, giving an aggregate excellent rating of 50/500 = 10%. The result at the individual institution level is different. Ten 'excellent' responses gives percentages of 10/50 = 20%, 10/ 75 = 13%, 10/100 = 10%, 10/125 = 8%, 10/150 = 7%. The average of institutions is 20 + 13 + 10 +8 + 7 = 58, divided by 5 = 12%.
8. In particular 'self-service' copying facilities were misinterpreted. There was also confusion over what was 'original' material (is the census on microfilm 'original' material), and the difference between a finding aid and a reference work.
9. The survey analysis presented here is based on the aggregate result for all participating archives. In some respects these results are misleading or unhelpful as archives with large survey samples will tend to skew the figures. For some purposes it is therefore more useful to compare the average percentage for archives. The bias towards personal-interest research and family history is less in the average results, indicating that the profile of the larger institutions is different from repositories generally. It appears to be consistently the case that the institutional average indicates higher satisfaction than the aggregate. This would be explained by high-sample archives generally being perceived as performing less well than low-sample institutions. The benchmark for individual archives should be the institutional average. The average institution achieved a 69% 'excellent' rating for its overall service (Q21).
10. Archives which compiled data on Access can check new reader satisfaction.
11. Participants with Access can find out exactly which source was inaccurate.
12. Participants with Access can check who used leaflets, etc, and what they thought of them.
13. The 'Mapping Project' was compiled in 1997-1998 by the PRO together with the Association of Chief Archivists in Local Government, NCA, HMC, and the Society of Archivists, to provide a picture of archival provision in England. Similar exercises have been held in Wales and Scotland.
14. Those participants who have their data on Access can analyse the type of reader making this response.
15. See the earlier discussion on 'churn', p 182.