http://action4archives.com/campaign
Natalie
Ceeney, the ‘Chief Executive Officer’ of The National
Archives that oversaw a ‘ten per cent’ reduction in services overall at Kew
last year is now long gone. Nevertheless, her legacy remains, especially in
many of the senior ‘management’.
Having
somehow missed out in the most recent budget reductions, in many respects the
present management are very quiet. Even so, there are still two long-term ‘projects’
that the civil servants are determined to prosecute.
Firstly,
everything on microfilm and microfiche is to be put online. This is because TNA
management regard this as ‘yesterday’s technology’ and all sorts of less than
believable claims have been made defending this stance. (Interestingly, I have
discussed this subject with archivists in numerous other institutions and they
do not agree with the claims made at Kew.)
The
majority of the filmed stock relates to personnel type files, so in some
respects might be regarded as a good
move: especially for genealogists. However, there are all sorts of downsides to
this.
Basically
these records are split in two. Those that have ‘market value’ are taken on by
the various online companies that are in favour with TNA management. Those that
are regarded as less likely to produce profits for these outside entities are to
be taken on by TNA’s in-house ‘Documents Online’.
Apart
from the varying standards of these operations, it has become a complicated
matter just finding some of these records. For instance, there are some
mercantile files that are incredibly
difficult to locate. Genealogists that are au
fait with these British state records online will have themselves realised
the multifarious problems with some of these companies. Unfortunately, those
that are not also historians are not likely to have noticed the many factual
inaccuracies on these websites: some of these being utter basic errors of fact.
The
other project that TNA ‘management’ is determined to prosecute is put the
entire catalogues online and destroying the paper catalogues. This is in spite
of the fact that senior managers have admitted that they have not actually
thought this out properly and have even admitted that there are technical
problems! It must also be said that senior TNA ‘managers’ were less than
pleased to receive expressions of displeasure at this latest wizard wheeze!
Even
although politically there is not much presently happening, I have been
reliably informed that through the coordination of Dr. Nick Barratt a campaign
in defending readers’ rights continues. Their campaign website is at:-
http://action4archives.com/campaign