'Volunteering in Archives' report
In the week of the 25th anniversary of Volunteers’ Week, a new report “Volunteering in Archives” has been welcomed as a timely reminder of the importance of volunteers and how archive services can contribute to the personal development of those who give up their time to help out.
Written by the National Council on Archives (NCA) and funded by the Museums Libraries & Archives Council (MLA), the Report gives a picture of the army of volunteers across the archives sector, outlines the benefits for the individuals who volunteer, shows how archive services can make more effective use of the time donated by volunteers and acknowledges the importance of promoting diversity in terms of volunteer recruitment.
The Report shows how people identify and value the skills they acquire through their voluntary work with archive services. Nearly one-third of respondents said that they had benefitted from improving their IT and other work-related skills, but other major benefits to the individual volunteer include gaining a better sense of being part of a community, improving confidence when job hunting and increasing social life and gaining new friends.
The Report also examines how archive services use and manage their volunteers. The National Archives Self Assessment exercise, which covers local authority archive services in England & Wales, identified that three-quarters of respondents have a volunteer policy in place. Archive services are investing more resources into proper management of their volunteers, which not only benefits the volunteers themselves, but also allows archives to provide more services to the users.
Issues relating to the recruitment of volunteers are also tackled and the Report highlights the need to do more in terms of attracting a more diverse range of volunteers into the archive sector. Whilst there are many examples volunteers using the opportunity to volunteer as a way of helping them to enter the archive profession, the Report emphasises the need for archive services to broaden the appeal of volunteering in the sector to non-users.
In welcoming the Report, the Chair of the National Council on Archives, Geoff Pick, said: “It is important that we celebrate the contribution of volunteers to the archive sector. Volunteers add real value to the services that archives can provide to users, for example by providing a more detailed finding aid, giving additional support for users, or providing valuable opportunities to engage users and wider communities with the archive.
“We need to do more to value and assess the contribution made by volunteers to the sector and to develop ways in which achievement by individual volunteers can be more visibly recognised through the introduction of a new national volunteer award.”
Roy Clare, Chief Executive of the MLA, said: “We are extremely grateful for the commitment from the thousands of volunteers across the country who give up their time and who add real value to archive, museum and library services. The MLA, the NCA, The National Archives and the Society of Archivists and many other professional bodies are committed to developing new and better ways for encouraging and integrating volunteers, not least in the recession.
This Report is a vital tool to help the archive sector to make better use of the resources offered by volunteers and to create a more structured approach to issues relating to recruitment, training and retention. Archives need to seize the moment and show not just what volunteering can offer to the sector, but what the sector can offer to potential volunteers.”
The report can be downloaded as a pdf - click here
