As part of the 2015/16 budget cuts, the public search room at Denbighshire's archive, based in Rhuthun/Ruthin, now opens for 2½ rather than a full 5 days a week.
At a public meeting this evening in the archives itself, it seems that the public access change was more about freeing up staff resources to deal with the digitising process than making actual cuts. Or so it seemed. Was the enforced retirement of one of the archivists just a coincidence, then?
Last year, co-author & editor of The History of Ruthin Gareth Evans slammed the proposals to reduce search room access. We said that in times of austerity, there might actually be other priorities. But, this evening, we heard that the number of actual visitor numbers has been steadily declining for years (as we've previously reported). People wish to access material from what is one of the smallest of its kind in Wales at the touch of a button rather than actually visit the premises. So, it seems right to concentrate on digitisation.
It seems that, at least initially, digitisation will concentrate not on making documents available via the web but on ensuring an up-to-date online catalogue. At the turn of the year, only three per cent of the archive's collection was available via a searchable database. This rose to 16 per cent in April and is expected to be at between 20 & 25 per cent on St David's Day, 2016, by the time the archive launches its new website. Reaching 100 per cent will take between five and seven years. If this seems a long time, Flintshire's archive cataloguing took seven.
Will this then mean that actual documents will find their way online? This was unclear. Some will nevertheless be available from 2016 and these include the already digitised stock of enclosure maps. The new website will enable historians to book the search room.
Gareth Evans had previously criticised archive staff for destroying modern records that, in years to come, could otherwise be valuable. At the time, said Evans, "The proposed new manager… seems to believe in a robust destruction policy which is a horrifying prospect for those of us who value these memories of our past". The archivists there present said that they were careful in considering what may be of future interest but that the present policy of destroying records after seven years would continue. Much of this was apparently minutiae and ephemera. So, that's good news for the historians of tomorrow. The problem has always been that no one actually knows whether something will be useful to future generations till someone actually searches for it. By then, it could be too late. There's a dilemma in balancing the needs of future generations and the needs of the council and its storage space. Perhaps digitisation may be the answer here, too.
What was surprising was that there are a number of archive volunteers, some of whom help weekly, others more occasionally and yet others electronically. The volunteers gave 1,052 hours in 2015 to date and some of the virtual volunteers live as far away as Dundee, Edinburgh, Kent… and New Zealand!
As part of Archive Week, it was possible to take a quiz as set up by Denbighshire archive, on Denbighshire's history. This blog author was awarded a gold award (on the first attempt) as a local history genius. Hmmm. Can't've been too hard, then
At a public meeting this evening in the archives itself, it seems that the public access change was more about freeing up staff resources to deal with the digitising process than making actual cuts. Or so it seemed. Was the enforced retirement of one of the archivists just a coincidence, then?
Last year, co-author & editor of The History of Ruthin Gareth Evans slammed the proposals to reduce search room access. We said that in times of austerity, there might actually be other priorities. But, this evening, we heard that the number of actual visitor numbers has been steadily declining for years (as we've previously reported). People wish to access material from what is one of the smallest of its kind in Wales at the touch of a button rather than actually visit the premises. So, it seems right to concentrate on digitisation.
Will this then mean that actual documents will find their way online? This was unclear. Some will nevertheless be available from 2016 and these include the already digitised stock of enclosure maps. The new website will enable historians to book the search room.
What was surprising was that there are a number of archive volunteers, some of whom help weekly, others more occasionally and yet others electronically. The volunteers gave 1,052 hours in 2015 to date and some of the virtual volunteers live as far away as Dundee, Edinburgh, Kent… and New Zealand!
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History