Title: The National Archives’ User Forum
Date: 20 August 2013
Location: Talks Room
Attendees (staff):
Lee Oliver (LMO), Head of Public Services Development (Chair); Caroline OttawaySearle (COS), Director of Public Services and Human Resources; Mary Gledhill
(MG), Commercial Director; Jackie Marfleet (JM), Head of Advice and Records
Knowledge; Roger Kershaw (RK), Head of Military, Maritime, Transport and Family
History; Corinne Harrison (CH), Reader Adviser; Joanna Robinson (JCR), Customer
Intelligence Assistant (Minutes)
Attendees (users):
Jackie Speel, Bob Whitfield, David Beaton, David Matthew, Richard P. Bateson,
Francis Howcutt, Scott Reeve, Graham Woolgar, Ron Platt
1. LMO welcomed all to the meeting.
2. Matters arising.
2.1 (Item 2.6 07/13) LMO advised that a Press Officer will speak at the December
User Forum.
2.2 Q. The July User Forum minutes were only published on the website one day
before the August User Forum. Why were they not available earlier?
A. The Web Team are currently very short-staffed. The minutes were published later
than intended. TNA aims to have forum minutes published around a week before the
following meeting.
2.3 (2.5 07/13) Q. Why were the Extraordinary User Forum minutes produced in a
different format to the usual User Forum minutes?
A. It was always intended to be a question and answer format. This allowed presubmitted questions to be matched to answers given in the forum. It is intended that
the final document will answer most future questions.
2.4 Q. Can User Forum be kept informed about developments relating to the 20 year
rule? LMO will take this away.
2.5 (2.7 07/13) The masterclass for self-service cameras was held on 12 April 2012.
Since then, concerns have still been raised about the quality of prints produced. It
was mentioned at the Friends of TNA AGM that the Friends may be able to finance
improvements to the cameras at TNA.
A. There are no representatives from Document Services Department (DSD) at this
meeting to respond. LMO will take this away.
3. Paper Research Guides in the Research & Enquiries Room - Roger Kershaw.
3.1 RK advised that paper research guides will be removed from the Research &
Enquiries Room on Monday 9 September. This decision has been made because of
the following: low usage rate; paper guides increasingly out of date; hyperlinks are
useless on paper; new staff and readers are encouraged to use the guides online.
Copies of each of the following guides will remain behind the enquiry desks and their
usage monitored:
How to Use ADM 12
Civil trials in the English Assize courts 1656-1971 – key to records
Criminal trials in the assize courts 1559-1971
Criminal trials in the English assize courts 1559-1971 – key to records
Chancery equity suits before 1558
Chancery equity suits after 1558
Death Duties 1796-1903: further research
Abbreviations in merchant seamen’s records
Foreign Office card indexes 1906-1910
Foreign Office card index 1910-1919
The Map and Large Document Reading Room is unaffected.
3.2 Q. This could be difficult for those readers who are not computer literate.
A. Newcomers will hopefully look online first. They can always ask staff for guidance.
3.3 Q. Should guides be accessioned?
A. Previous versions are on the web archive.
4. A personal view of the June User Advisory Group (UAG) meeting - Graham
Woolgar (GW).
4.1 (1.3 06/13 UAG minutes) GW and Richard Bateson had a meeting with James
Lawson, Customer Intelligence Manager, and Stuart Abraham, FOI Centre Manager,
in January 2013. Post meeting update: notes of this meeting are now available to
view on the website with the UAG papers of March 2013. GW said that there is no
reporting on reclosures. They are marked as closed on Discovery. He wants to see
the scale of the reclosure and who asked for them to be reclosed and why.
4.2 (1.5 06/13 UAG minutes) GW said that the image resolution of digitisations of BT
389, BT 377 and ADM 340 have been poor and expressed concern at the lack of
public consultation before digitisation. GW demonstrated the difference in quality
between the high resolution BT 389 master copy and the image available on the
website. He expressed concern that if original documents ever cease to be
accessible, research could be compromised if only poor quality images are available.
4.3 (1.5 06/13) Q. FindmyPast have done a good job of transcription yet Ancestry
transcriptions are often very poor.
A. GW here reiterated his point about the need for higher resolution digitised images
at TNA. Transcription errors can be corrected. The images are only a problem if they
can’t be corrected. LMO said the quality of digitisation is improving all the time.
4.4 (1.2 06/13) Q. Issue was taken with this point by GW and Richard Bateson. They
said that a variety of subjects, as well as the Records Decision Panel, were
discussed at the Extraordinary User Forum.
A. LMO said the original idea for the forum came from this, we then broadened it out.
4.5 (1.9 06/13) Q. There are still no means of finding detail of accession by date why is this?
A. LMO said that Guy Grannum had misunderstood Susan Moore’s question, which
was about date ranges appearing before specific dates in search results on
Discovery.
4.6 (2.1 06/13) Q. The Finding Archives project does not appear to be going well.
Can you explain why this is?
A. LMO said the Finding Archives project is going well. More consultation work is
needed but there have been no significant challenges.
Q. Lots of archivists don’t want the Finding Archives project - why does it continue?
A. The current Access to Archives (A2A) system is unsustainable, so it needs to be
done.
GW spoke about the benefits of using Discovery’s advanced search to filter results.
He also noted that a workshop was held immediately after June’s UAG meeting that
went into more detail about Finding Archives.
4.7 (3.2 06/13) Q. What are the implications of TNA being an Independent Research
Organisation?
A. MG said that this is a recent development which means we can apply to academic
funding bodies for projects such as collaborative doctoral awards. It has no impact
on our statutory status.
4.8 Q. What is the Discovery Enhancement Board?
A. LMO is chair of the board and answered all subsequent questions. It was set up
to deal with outstanding issues following Discovery’s launch.
Q. How is this funded?
A. It is considered ‘business as usual’. However, a benefit of the Finding Archives
project is that it will fix some of Discovery’s outstanding issues.
Q. Has the issues log for Discovery been published?
A. No, it is an internal working document.
4.9 (4.1 06/13) LMO clarified the matter of RG 6. It was produced on a reader’s
request. Audrey Collins, Records Specialist – Family History, subsequently assessed
the matter and confirmed that it should not have been removed from open access.
Readers who think they need a Red List are directed to ask staff at the enquiry
desks.
4.10 (5.3 06/13) The glossary will be published on the website along with
September’s meeting papers.
5. Open Discussion.
5.1 A first time attendee said that he was glad to know that TNA is being monitored
by such knowledgeable people. He praised Principal Records Specialist Mark
Dunton’s contribution to the British Library’s exhibition ‘Propaganda: Power and
Persuasion’ and TNA’s Latin resources on the website. However, the Latin and
palaeography sections could be more prominent.
A: MG recommended Mark Dunton’s contribution to the History of Government blog.
LMO said that the Latin and palaeography sections are very popular but probably
most easily found via Google.
5.2 Q. Ordering in Discovery is inconvenient and involves switching between
Discovery and the document ordering page and having to enter your reference a
second time after clicking ‘order now’.
A. We will look into this.
5.3 Q. There was a marked problem in document production statistics in mid July.
The percentage of documents produced within 60 minutes went down. Why did this
happen?
A. There are no representatives of DSD at this meeting to respond, but July was the
busiest month ever.
Q. I have been at TNA on several occasions where I have had to wait up to two
hours for documents to be produced. On one occasion I was told the delay was due
to a ticket printing issue; there was no mention of a staff shortage. There was no
announcement at the time either.
A. LMO said he will take this away.
5.4 There was a discussion about the Management Board summaries from 21 May
2013. How are non-executive directors chosen? Could one come and talk to the
forum?
LMO said that they are chosen by competitive recruitment and that he would ask if
one would talk to User Forum.
5.5 Q. The current 20 year rule figures for Treasury sound wrong. Treasury said that
they didn’t raise figures and that they were going to send information to TNA.
A. LMO said we will follow that up.
5.6 Q. Can we go back to having the User Forum held on Thursday lunchtimes?
A. Holding meetings on different days allows more people the opportunity to attend.
However, we will take on board feedback that evenings can be inconvenient.
5.7 Q. Why are papers that have been opened sometimes reclosed?
A. Laws relating to sensitivity of documents have changed over the years, along with
public attitudes to privacy and how information is disseminated. TNA has to comply
with the law, including the Freedom of Information Act and the Data Protection Act.
5.8 Q. What happens when a file is closed?
A. The redacted part is kept separately within the file. It is not sent elsewhere.
6. Date of next meeting: Thursday 17 October 2013, 12:30-13:45