News Archive

01/12/2006: December 2006

The Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport will finish hearing oral evidence for the Inquiry: Caring for our Collections in January 2007. The National Council on Archives submitted a written response to the Inquiry and gave oral evidence on 31st October 2006.

You can read the NCA's written submission here.

You can see the NCA give oral evidence here. The British Library and The National Archives gave evidence first. The NCA can be seen next with ICON at 1hour 16mins into the hearing. The Film Archive Forum, British Film Institute and The Bridgeman Picture Library are after that at 1 hour 57mins into the hearing.

08/11/2006: The twenty first century archive reading room

This year, the quality forum will look at public spaces in archive services: how should they be developed? What do we need to factor in to ensure that our reading rooms are fit for purpose and answer our users' expectations and our professional aspirations? How are other sectors, including public libraries, dealing with these questions? We have also asked users for their ideas and their views will be represented on the platform.

In the morning sessions, speakers include Charlotte Hodgson, Convenor of the Public
Services Group, Sergio Dogliani, Principal Idea Store Manager at the London Borough of
Tower Hamlets, Lee Oliver from The National Archives and Paul Hadley who will articulate the users' perspective.

The afternoon sessions will focus on more practical matters and we will be inviting practitioners who have recently redesigned their public spaces to speak about their
experience of the change.

There will be, as usual, PSQG work in progress reports and a short business session at the end of the day.

You are all warmly invited to this, the 11th annual quality forum, at TNA, on Wednesday,
8 November 2006.

PSQG 2006 ANNUAL FORUM PROGRAMME
10.30 - 11.00 Registration and Coffee
11:00 - 11.10 Welcome: The morning session will be chaired by Jan Smith, County Archivist, Hampshire Record Office
11.10 - 11.30 Fit for purpose? User expectations and professional aspirations for
archive public spaces today (Charlotte Hodgson, Principal Archivist, Glamorgan Record Office and Convenor, PSQG)
11.30 - 12.00 The Idea Store Whitechapel (Sergio Dogliani, Principal Idea Store Manager, London Borough of Tower Hamlets)
12.00 - 12.30 Public services for the twenty first century
(Lee Oliver, Head of Public Services Development, The National Archives)
12.30 - 13.00 The user's perspective
(Paul Hadley, independent researcher)
13.00 - 14.00 Lunch
14.00 - 14.05 Theory into practice: The afternoon session will be chaired by Geoff Pick, Manager, Public Services, London Metropolitan Archives
14.05 - 15:30
• A new archives reading room for King's College London (Patricia
Methven, Director of Archives and Information Management, King's
College London together Steven Pidwill from Shepheard, Epstein,
Hunter)
• Specifications for the public spaces at the Devon Record Office
(John Draisey, County Archivist, Devon Record Office together with
Kevin Presland, Senior Architect, Atkins Design Solutions)
15.30 - 15.45 PSQG: Work in progress (including reports on The National Visitors' Survey
2006 and the proposed distance users' survey)
15.45 - 16.00 Tea
16.00 - 16.15 Public Services Quality Group business meeting. (A short business meeting, to which everyone is invited, will follow at the end of the forum. Anyone interested in joining working parties is welcome to attend.)