This week is the last chance to feed comments and suggestions into TNA’s consultation process. Sadly, we are still without the necessary information, requested in the open letter, to make a constructive contribution and consequently emailed once more asking for clarification on, and corrections to be made to the minutes of the User Forum held on 20 August, which were recently posted on TNA’s website.
Therefore it came as some surprise to receive an automated ‘out of office’ email from the Director of Operations and Services, Jeff James who – according to the email – is on leave from 7 – 18 September, and will return to work on 21 September. It is valid to ask how last minute suggestions are meant to be incorporated into the planning process if the individual responsible for the said consulation is not available to be consulted?
We are attending a meeting tomorrow where members of the academic community and representatives of several professional bodies will present their concerns to TNA management at the Institute of Historical Research, after which I will then head to a meeting with MP Susan Kramer, whose constituency includes TNA, to brief her on what we have uncovered during this campaign and express our reservations (along with the necessary proofs and evidence) about the proposals, the consultation process and overall governance of TNA under the leadership of the current Chief Executive and her management team.
Edwin Mungo states that a lot of the outcry seems to be about things that are not hinted at at all in the cuts: an end to cataloguing; relegation of the physical site at Kew and eventual move out of London; etc. and asks for evidence. Rest assured, these are real issues that will happen if the readers and public do not fight back in a reasoned and thoughtful manner – see the Open letter to the CEO for an example. We’ve just had the anniversary of WW II starting – remember how many people didn’t see Hitler as a threat?
Also if he reads the TNA page http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/about/changes-qanda.htm Questions and Answers he will see how TNA makes everything sound relatively reasonable, but if he continues with the User Forum minutes for the last few months at http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/events/readers.htm he will come to realise just how many people are disturbed by the proposals and consider TNA as we know it worth fighting for.
Thank you for this website. Us Britsh have that wonderful knack of making mistakes big-time. Many of the proposed cut backs at the NA appear make no sense.
Nick Barratt’s article in Family History Monthly Nov 2009 edition puts the case against the cutbacks well.
Regarding Edwin Mungo’s comment about things that are not hinted at in the cuts, specifically the relegation of the ‘physical site’ (there’s a piece of digital age jargon if ever there was one – it is an actual real place, a building, full of people, and things) and eventual move out of London, someone I know who works at TNA first mentioned this as a future possibility several years ago, not long after the current Chief Executive arrived – in other words, it has been on the table for a good while. If it isn’t stopped straight away, it will happen. Simple as that.
Combining things like car parking charges with the removal of services (i.e. microfilm) from the reading rooms will inevitably result in a drop off of visitor numbers. Imagine someone taking the trouble to drive to Kew, paying to park there, only to find that the thing they had gone there to consult was now no longer available. They are not likely to come back, are they? Visitor numbers drop, which then gives the so-called management a perfect excuse to further run the place down.
So, they’ve got to save money. I wonder how much money was spent on the completely pointless re-branding a few years ago? What was wrong with it being the PRO? Nothing. It had worked perfectly okay for decades as such. How much did it cost to change it to TNA? Plenty, I’m sure.
Speaking as someone as baffled by ‘digital age’ terminology as Stephen Dent is, I don’t think referring to Kew as a ‘physical site’ is a particularly arcane turn of phrase. I know it’s often been mooted that TNA might move from Kew, and I’m sure it will continue to be. It’s not much of a building, even by 1970s standards, and leaks heat and energy at every pore. They spent a lot on it, though, and indeed on extending it when OPSI and HMC moved in (t’s the combination of those two bodies with the PRO that makes up TNA, by the way – it wasn’t just a rebrand, it had organizational significance), so I don’t think the decision to go would be taken lightly. I personally would have loved them to stay in Chancery Lane, at almost any cost. But space was running out there, and the continues to do so at Kew today. Even in the digital age, huge amounts of space are needed for new paper archives (and atmospheric control, lighting, heating etc). I’m sure they’ll continue to discuss the options. I think the loss of major public institutions from fine buildings in the centre of London, first to the suburbs and then out of London entirely, is a great shame. It makes you wonder why we bother having a capital city at all. But it is as pointless to blame the cash-strapped institutions themselves as to blame small town-centre shop-keepers for closing down when Tescos set up on the ring road.
The only microfilms being taken away from the reading rooms are supposedly of stuff you can consult on-line free at TNA, and if the quality of the image isn’t up to scratch (not unknown with microfilm itself) you can order the original.
As for parking charges, for me this is the one no-brainer. Get the tube to Kew Gdns, the train to Kew Bridge or the R68 bus practically to TNA’s front door if you don’t want to pay. Public buildings are already assessed for carbon emissions, in which the number of people driving there plays a big part. They will soon have to offset this or be penalised. There are too many people driving around SW London anyway; and if, on yor way to TNA, you have ever sat in the traffic on the Mortlake Road, Kew Bridge or Clifford Avenue, wondering who all these flipping people were in their flipping cars, then it’s time you realised you’re part of the problem yourself. I say this as someone who has often been guilty of this irrational solipsism myself, and as someone who likes driving.
Precisely. The same thing happened to the National Art Collections Fund, re-branded as “The Art Fund” at hideous expense, with appalling taste – and it pleads poverty.
Perhaps a Chief Executive or two could volunteer a cut in salary.